Macgasm

Disney is launching a new line of toys based on the movie Cars 2 that turns the iPad into a neat little game board for you (er… I mean your kids) to play on. Disney calls the software “Appmates”, and it’s free to download but you can’t do much with it unless you’ve got one of Disney’s little toy car characters to push around on the screen. Once you do, however, the toy works without Bluetooth or any fancy connectors; just put it on the iPad screen, say “Vroom vroom” and watch the environment respond. Cars skid in the mud, buildings get knocked over, horns get honked. It’s kinda like being on a road trip with Josh Schnell.

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Yes, Virginia, there are Mac viruses… but you have to be tricked into installing them. This seems to be the strategy behind a new trojan horse on the scene, called “Flashback”, which disguises itself as an Adobe Flash installer in hopes that you’ll double click. The virus targets Lion users specifically, and was discovered by security firm Intego.

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If this picture looks familiar to you, you’re going to get a kick out of hearing that Glider, the red hot Mac game from before Michael Keaton put on a Batman costume, will be coming to iOS. In it, you are a little paper airplane with the simple mandate to stay afloat. Using air currents and gravity, you navigate your way through a house while avoiding obstacles and, of course, the floor. It was  a quirky but innovative little game that became a staple in the good old days, and now is finding new life on your iOS device.

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Change is afoot with Skype, the popular voice and video chat app, with an update to the iOS version which includes support for Bluetooth on the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and fourth-gen iPod touch, image stabilization and the new introduction of ads. This is good news for yuppies with fancy bluetooth headsets who like to talk loudly about “positive paradigm re-adjustment” while sitting in Starbucks. The video stabilization will be nice as well for those of you who hold up your iPad like a Gideon Bible while talking… but reports say that it only works on the rear camera (which is the camera you don’t use while video conferencing).

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Apple has set the date for an iPhone-focused event: This October 4th, Tim Cook will get on the stage at the Apple Campus and will “Talk iPhone”. Even among the staunchest rumor-doubters (myself being one), there’s little question that this is the day the iPhone 5 is likely to arrive, along with iOS 5 and probably OS X 10.7.2 as well. It’s clearly going to be something pretty big, as Apple has even put a hold on any vacation days requested among retail store staff and pretty much got all hands on deck. The wild rumpus starts at 10 AM Pacific time.

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Looks like J.P. Morgan’s Gokul Hariharan made a small error in his analysis of Apple’s iPad-based fortunes when he reported a 25% drop in iPad orders among Foxconn factories in Asia. Apple (AAPL) shares took a sharp downturn after the word was out, but both Hariharan and traders forgot one thing: Foxconn has a new plant in Brazil that will be spewing out iPads like nobody’s business by December.

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DEO, the dark but strangely plucky game from Strapped to a Meteor, is out on iOS and looking kinda neat. In this game you must jump your little red ball to every hill on a planet in order to “claim” it, and once you’ve completed an entire level you can then build a planet. The better you do during the level, the more fruitful your planet is. No, I don’t think I totally get it either… but then in 2009 I was the guy saying “Plants versus zombies? How does THAT work?”

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The advent of iOS5 is growing near, and the features we’ll be receiving in the big-time update will include a next-generation “Assistant” for the next-generation iPhone (whatever shape it may take when it arrives). The Assistant is a voice-activated feature that incorporates Nuance/Siri-powered technology and enables users to do all sorts of things by voice alone, including complex scheduling, reminders and task lists.

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