During the past week, I saw the blogosphere freak out as everyone held their breath for one of the most awaited annual events to occur- the Apple Special Event, presented by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. iRumors spread like fire (my favorite being the Mac Tablet iPod Video rumor, check out this video of how the fake was made), and even got a few seats here on Tech#, and speculations as to what Apple would unviel was discussed all around.

Now, the hour finally came, and I, a PC user, sat glued to my seat and completely preplexed, and read every single word that was blogged live until the Apple Special Event was concluded.

So what was in Jobs and Co’s magic pockets at their Apple ‘Fun’ Special Event 2006? Just to recap:

• Intel Mac Mini. The base model features an Intel Core Solo CPU — a single-processor, single-core CPU, but they are also introducing a Mac mini that features Intel’s Core Duo processor — the same kind of CPU that powers the iMac and MacBook Pro. The redesigned Mac mini features gigabit Ethernet, a total of four USB 2.0 ports, analog and SPDIF audio outputs and more. It is 2.5x - 3.2x faster than the original Mac mini.
  The new Mac mini also features Front Row, an application that makes it possible to view movies, listen to audio, watch music videos and more from your Mac, in full-screen, using an infrared remote control from across the room, making it a better home entertainment integration system.
• iTunes: One Billionth Download. Jobs recapped a recent event of import to Apple’s iTunes Music Store: The sale and download of its billionth song, “Ok, a billion sold, so we beat McDonald’s.”
• iPod Leather Cases. Apple is introducing $99 leather cases for the fifth-generation “video” iPod and ipod nano. Made of fine Italian leather, they incorporate a clever black ribbon that makes getting your iPod out a breeze.
  
• iPod Hi-Fi: Home Stereo. Reinvented. A three-driver system in one unit featuring an iPod dock on top. An auxiliary input rests in the back of the iPod Hi-Fi if you have an iPod shuffle. The device also ships with inserts designed to accommodate virtually all of Apple’s dockable iPod models.The speaker system includes two 80 millimeter (mm) mid-range drivers with a sealed acoustic suspension and a 130mm dual voice coil woofer featuring a ported bass reflex design, inside a sealed resin enclosure.
  The iPod Hi-Fi goes on sale today for $349.

So what do you do when you’re under pressure to come up with more revenue? You exploit your user base and immitate an already successful business model. Incase you haven’t heard of it yet; Google will be launching Purchases, a new service that allows users to make micropayments within Google Base to buy and sell all sorts of items; as well as videos from Google video and items off the Google Store. Which places them directly in competition with Ebay and possibly paypal in the future.

All you need is a Google Account (gmail or any other email that is setup with google) and you’re good to go. To see some of the sample items that are marked for sale go to Google Base and search for xyzzy. You will notice that the payment is set as “Payment By Google”. Techcrunch’s Nik Cubrilovic has some screenshots of that as well as an exclusive review.

The checkout process is extremely quick and much faster than Paypal’s (page loading times are Google fast) – it also has a much nicer interface making it easier for a user to navigate their way through a checkout and purchase. Overall with Google Base and payments the experience for a user is much nicer than what it is on eBay, a very nice interface and many search features while maintaining the very minimal yet functional interface as expected from Google. I can see that they will be able to maintain this nice interface even as the inventory of items for sale gets much much bigger – their choice of using tags for items as opposed to categories makes it much easier to find items and to fine-tune search results.

It’s highly possible that Google will eventually allow money transfers in addition to selling and buying stuff on Google Base. I still haven’t formed my opinion on this; on one hand Google is global and is likely to allow such transactions from countries that are not allowed on Paypal (example: Middle East). On the other hand; this will only serve to decrease my privacy and add my purchasing patterns into the Google Grid.

What do you think of this? Do you think it will Kill ebay, craig’s list and the likes? And would you use it if it becomes like paypal?

You might also want to check this post

Could this be today’s super secret announcement? We bought a data center to faciliatate full movie downloads for the iPod? Maybe! Here’s the news:

Ever-expanding Apple Computer Inc. has acquired an impressively equipped but never-used data center in Newark for an estimated $45 million to $50 million. The 107,000-square-foot facility, originally conceived for communications company MCI WorldCom before getting mothballed after its 2001 completion, is along Eureka Drive on Newark’s western fringe.

Speculation is high, check out the What Would Jobs Do post on engadget. What do you think it’ll be.

No one is untouchable; and the more popular you get the more likely people would try to hack away your products for vulnerabilities and target your platform with viruses and trojan horses.

3 Viruses have been discovered for Mac in the past ten days. Starting with the discovery of OSX/Leap-A (also known as OSX/Oompa-A) on February 16th, a worm that speards itself through iChat, Apple’s instant messenger software and the first Mac OS X virus ever to be discovered. February 21st OSX/Inqtana-A which spreads itself through bluetooth is discovered. February 22nd another variation OSX/Inqtana-B is discovered; and that won’t be the end of it. So far the effect of these viruses/worms has been a none-event, with very little people effected.

A newly discovered Safari vulnerability poses a serious threat. Safari will execute shell scripts after clicking a link. It doesn’t get sweeter than that for a rouge hacker to take control of your machine. 

Under normal circumstances, shell scripts begin with a “shebang line” such as “#!/bin/bash” to indicate which interpreter should handle its execution. However, Mac OS X will load scripts without a shebang line into the Terminal where it will be executed by a shell. If the user has assigned the Finder to open scripts using the Terminal, this will happen automatically.

Examples of the vulnerability can be found here (WARNING: DO NOT ENTER IF YOU’RE A NOVICE MAC USER).  Documentation of the  vulnerability can be found at  Michael Lehn’s site.

The only known work around at the present time is to deactivate the “Open ’safe’ files after downloading” option in the “General” section of Safari’s preferences. Or use an alternative browser that doesn’t allow for auto execution of files such as Firefox or Camino.

An additional protective measure is to move the Terminal application from /Applications/Utilities into a different folder. However this can have effects on the OS update process.

To determine whether your system is vulnerable or not, use this online demonatration provided by Heise Security. The demo attempts to open a Terminal window to display the contents of a folder. If you are running Mac OS X in its standard configuration and are using safari, the window will open without waiting for a Prompt, but could be altered to delete your files for instance.

At this point, no web pages are known to misuse this vulnerability. This however can change very quickly.

Warn thy friends!

So you want a free VOIP phone for Skype? Centercode are having a beta test, here’s how to get it one:

Do you Skype? Centercode is pleased to offer another excellent test to our community. This new product greatly enhances and improves a user’s experience with VoIP with a special integrated functionality with Skype.

Qualified candidates will be active Skype users who use the software on a regular basis. This project is an international test. This means we will be need participants from all every continent to participate.

There’s also a Conference Phone test for small businesses.

Shout out to our anonymous tipster, leave a name next time

So you’re carrying your iPod Nano 24/7 and don’t want to lug an extra brick (that is your cellphone/pda), but need to have all your appointments, tasks, notes, and contacts?

Well there’s a software from Pocket Mac that sync’s your your Entourage (That’s the name of Microsoft Outlook on Mac) to your iPod. It allows you to sync your contacts, calendar, tasks, notes and unread email. The bad news is; it doesn’t notify you when you’re late for an appointment.

Still having your contact and shopping list on the go is quite useful. Oh, the software is available for both Mac & Windows. You get both versions when you buy one, and it works with any generation iPod

If you read last week’s announcement but couldn’t register. Now is the time; it’s open to public again. Like Yazan said before, it doesn’t add much to the world, it’s just Google’s version of Geocities. The again 45% of businesses out there do not have websites.

And while you’re at it check out what geek brief had to say.

You have to appreciate the cult that is Mac and how this makes things happen. Be it hackers like Maxxuss who spend their time getting OS X to boot up propperly on Intel white boxes; or enthusiasts who spend their extra hours photoshop(ing) possible new Mac products and perhaps inspire Mac or other companies to make those.

And last but not least, you have to appreciate hardware hackers who dream up new ways to use a product, whether it’s installing a car computer or simply reinventing it.

With all the speculation about Apple introducing a Tablet Mac sometime in the future; the iTab team was set out on converting a batch of iBooks into tablets instead of waiting for Apple to introduce them and selling them on eBay.

The iTab is built by taking Apple’s excellent 12″ iBook laptop, taking the screen off, applying a touchscreen, then flipping the screen around and fastening it on. The whole thing is finished off by putting the leftover screen backing over the top of the iTab, giving it the “rounded white edges.” The image above is a very close approximation of what iTab should look like when constructed. The iTab is not built yet. We will build them as they are sold. And they are going on sell today! We are selling them one at a time, through eBay auctions.

Sounds sweet! But it has some drawbacks; lacking a hardware warantee is one; let’s face it Apple won’t fix a modded computer. It also doesn’t work with InkWell, Apple’s handwriting recognition software. Isn’t that what a tablet PC is all about? The company recommends purchasing Keystrokes, a widget that allows for onscreen text entry with text prediction; they should have at least bundled it in.On the other hand, the iTab has motion detection; which allows you to cetrain play games by simply moving the iTab up, down, left, or right.

So if you have $1500 USD to burn for a novelty computer that allows you to browse the web in the backyard, and look crazy as you’re playing a game. Headover to the iTab homepage and check out their eBay auction, they sold one out of those 100 so far. I wonder if they thought up a docking station so that you can dock in your Tablet Mac for some real typing, then take it with you to browse or just jot notes (i presume they would work on making it work with an ink software).

Personally I’m gonna wait for the Origami

[Video iPod faking video via The Raw Feed]

AOpen plans to unveil next month at CeBIT its next-generation MiniPC, even minier than the old one (just 6×6 inches). It also has infrared sensors for remote control functions, Gigabit Ethernet, DVI, Firewire USB 2.0 and other features. Yet, at $1,000 a piece, it is more than twice the price of a Mac Mini! (DailyTech)

Somewhere in this beautiful realm of bytes and code, there actually exists a web site offering to build customviruses for $990 each, most certainly not forgetting the importance of tech support. These viruses are even advertised to have the ability to morph in order to avoid detection by anti-virus software! Apparently, this may be the first instance of commercially available custom viruses ever. [Raw Feed]