Macgasm

Angry Birds: a man’s best friend. Now, the birds with emotion are ready to ascend beyond this world and enter space. Seriously. No, Rovio isn’t making a new app dedicated to zero-gravity attacks. Rather, NASA is sending up a couple of iPads to the International Space Station (ISS) and an Angry Birds plush toy will assist in the journey.

Two Apple iPads are packed on board the next unmanned resupply vehicle to fly to the space station, set for launch later this month. And a stuffed toy doll of the red bird from Rovio Mobile’s “Angry Birds” puzzle game will accompany the next three crew members to depart Earth for the ISS next month.

Scheduled to liftoff Oct. 30 at 6:11 a.m. EDT from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, the iPads will be the first tablets on the ISS. They’ll also join the laptops, iPods, and iPhone that are already onboard. NASA will be assessing tablets for possible future use in space.

Of course, these carry-ons will serve a purpose. The two iPads will augment the iPod music players already used by the crew on the station. The red plush toy? He’s just an indicator for when the shuttle has reached space. He’ll float, naturally.

Macworld Conference & Expo, which has been an event closely associated with Apple and the industry around it for over 25 years, is going with a new name: Macworld | iWorld, tagged as “The Ultimate iFanevent”.  (more…)

Since the recent passing of Steve Jobs due to cancer, there’s been a whole lot of  interesting facts unearthed in his memory, some of which depict him as, well… kind of an asshole.

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We reported yesterday on Apple’s plan to offer Ship to Store as a shipping option from its online store. The feature, which allows you to pick up stock items ordered online directly from your store, or gift them to others even, went live today in San Francisco as a test site.

Customers shopping online with Apple can now select and have their items sent to an actual brick and mortar Apple Store. More locations are sure to be following in the next couple of weeks with the holidays right around the corner.

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A documentary about Steve Jobs will be airing on your local PBS affiliate on November 2nd at 10:00PM, and will feature never seen before interview footage with Jobs.

PBS describes the program:

ONE LAST THING takes an unflinching look at Jobs’s difficult, controlling disposition, and offers unique insights into what made him tick. While there has been near-universal agreement that Steve Jobs was a great innovator in business and technology, ONE LAST THING looks into why he was so great. What were the influences that shaped his character? What drove him from such humble beginnings to the heights of success?

Featuring interviews with, among others, Ronald Wayne, co-founder of Apple with Jobs and Steve Wozniak; Ross Perot, who invested in NeXT Computer when Jobs was running out of money; Walt Mossberg, principal technology columnist for The Wall Street Journal, who interviewed Jobs every year from 2003-2010; will.i.am, frontman and producer for The Black Eyed Peas, whose “I Gotta Feeling” currently ranks as the most downloaded iTunes song ever; Dean Hovey, designer of the original mouse for Apple; Robert Cringely, writer and host of the PBS series TRIUMPH OF THE NERDS: THE RISE OF ACCIDENTAL EMPIRES; Robert Palladino, calligraphy professor at Reed College, whose classes Jobs credited with inspiring his typography design for the Mac; and Bill Fernandez, who introduced Jobs and Wozniak in Sunnyvale, where the three hung out in his father’s garage and tinkered with electronics.

In a never-before-broadcast interview from 1994, Jobs expounds on his philosophy of life: “You tend to get told that the world is the way it is, but life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact; and that is that everything around you that you call life was made up by people no smarter than you … Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”

You can check your local listings here to see when and where you can watch it.

Via: cultofmac
Source: BusinessWire

China Mobile is still in talks with Apple to get the iPhone on its network, according to China Mobile Chairman Wang Jianzhou as reported by Reuters. Speaking to reporters at the ITU world telecom event in Geneva, Wang said, “We have not yet got agreement with Apple. Apple promised to provide, when they develop the iPhone for LTE, that it will include TD-LTE. We are discussing the details.” No timeframe was given for the two sides to reach an agreement.

LTE is synonymous with 4G, the next generation of wireless offering higher data speeds, and TD-LTE is China Mobile’s unique implementation of LTE. Prior to the iPhone 4S announcement, there was much speculation that the new iPhone would be a 4G phone, but it looks like China Mobile will be waiting for the iPhone 5 before it can get an LTE iPhone.

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Apple has began clearing land in North Carolina adjacent to its new data center to make way for a solar farm set to provide the majority of power for the facility.

While no official facility permits have been filed, Apple applied for a land grading permit which described the land usage as “Solar Panel Farm A” and is an amendment to the original “Project Dolphin”. This was the name given to the original data center in Maiden which opened earlier this year.

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Siri is the new kid in town. Quite popular, too. However, she can only be used when your iPhone 4S is within reach. But what if you could boss around the personal assistant from across the room and hear her clever responses? The Iris 9000 is here to answer the call. (more…)