Matt's Favorites: New iPhone And Much More
So what's the most wonderful news out of the tech and science world as we hit midweek? Mike Mike Mike Mike Mike! -- and everybody else -- enjoy these gems oh Hump Day.
* First of all, here are the links to your Tech Report home page, the Tech Report Page Two(home
of much fascinatin' news), as well as our latest event notices (tons today, go look!), HR notices and award and certification notices.
* Apple unveiled an update to its popular smartphone on Tuesday at a press event at the company's headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. The tech giant announced the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C -- two very different phones. One's high-tech, the other an economy version. On the high end version, just as the rumors suggested, the new iPhone will include Touch ID -- a fingerprint sensor built into the home button.
* But tweeters and bloggers pronounced the event kind of meh, and there's already a News.com article about the five most disappointing things about the new phone.
* Also, iOS fans can download the newest operating system for their mobile devices on Sept. 18, Apple announced on Tuesday. As expected, Apple announced this news from a special event at its headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. There were earlier rumors that Apple would release the update on Tuesday.
* And Apple's answer to Pandora will be available when its new operating system is out for mobile devices, the company said at an event launching two new iPhones.
* Attorneys suing Google for enabling its camera-carrying vehicles to collect emails and Internet passwords while photographing neighborhoods for the search giant's popular "Street View" maps look forward to resuming their case now that a federal appeals court has ruled in their favor. The U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco said Tuesday that the Google went far beyond listening to accessible radio communication when they drew information from inside people's homes.
* It seems almost unbelieveable, but interest in science, technology and math careers is declining among teens. This is despite the fact that the Partnership for a New American Economy says that will be a shortfall of 230,000 qualified advanced-degree STEM workers by 2018. A little advice, kids: Not all of you can find jobs as entertainment lawyers, and approximately, oh, I don't know, none of you are ever going to be rock stars, famous rappers or pro athletes.
* Yes, the video of the girl bursting into flames after twerking is a joke. Darn it.
* Cool: Scientists have found evidence of life in the cold and utter darkness of Antarctic ice buried for 100,000 years.
* In England, a TV show about a terrorist attack on the national power grid called Blackout spawned some hysterically funny Tweets.
* Bermuda braced Tuesday for heavy rains and wind as Tropical Storm Gabrielle reformed in the Atlantic and gained strength. The British territory suspended ferry service as wind and rain started to pick up, and several flights were cancelled as the storm approached.
* Two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut packed up and readied their Soyuz spacecraft for undocking from the International Space Station overnight Tuesday, setting up a fiery plunge back to Earth to close out a 166-day stay in orbit. "I definitely will be sad to go," Christopher Cassidy, a Navy SEAL-turned-astronaut completing his second spaceflight, told CBS Radio. "It's just so incredible and such an honor to be here."
* Twitter says it is buying MoPub, a mobile-focused advertising company, as it works to expand its advertising reach ahead of an expected initial public offering that could come as soon as this year. San Francisco-based Twitter Inc. did not give a purchase price.
* Our good and great friends the Chinese are threatening those who dare to question their munificent regime to three years in prison for "spreading rumors" online.
* Well, they've figured out what's killing off the monarch butterflies. It's logging in Mexico, their winter nesting grounds. So you can probably say adios to the monarch butterflies, since that country is not exactly known for its environmental enlightenment.
* New startups looking for ways to keep their users secure should know one thing, a top Google security executive said Tuesday: "Passwords are dead." Speaking on a TechCrunch Disrupt panel called "Spies Like Us," Heather Adkins, Google's manager of information security, told moderator Greg Ferenstein that going forward, the "game is over for" any startup that relies on passwords as their chief method of securing users and their data.
* Rockstar Games' highly-anticipated fifth installment in the Grand Theft Auto series, which hits shelves next Tuesday, Sept. 17, has been hyped for the mind-blowingly massive environment it will let players parachute over, sky dive into, or fly and drive everything from fighter jets to speed boats across. The studio has touted the game as being larger than the previous two GTAs and its Western title Red Dead Redemption combined. It turns out that's no joke. Thanks to an accidental early sale of a GTA V strategy guide and its contents leaking their way onto gaming forum NeoGaf, we can now see just how large the game's map truly is. And it is huge, with mountain, desert, and countryside areas that absolutely dwarf the city portion.
* No matter how luxurious your dream car is, it probably can't drive under water. Unless you're the proud new owner of James Bond's submarine car from "The Spy Who Loved Me." Piloted by Roger Moore as 007, the Lotus Esprit became famous in the 1977 film for vaulting into the sea, promptly converting to submarine mode, and dispatching a few baddies beneath the waves. But after languishing in a Long Island storage locker, the aqua-car has seen the light of day again, selling for $968,000 with fees at a London auction.
* Cisco Systems will acquire solid-state memory company Whiptail for $415 million. Cisco, a networking equipment maker, said Tuesday it plans to integrate Whiptail's solid-state memory technology into its unified computing system (UCS) products.
