Mac

SAN FRANCISCO--Politicians like to joke that Social Security reform is considered the "third rail" of politics. In Apple's world, that rail belongs to security.

It's been a while since we examined the "state of Mac security," and with this week's RSA Conference in San Francisco, and last month's CanSecWest conference fresh in everyone's mind, it seemed like a decent time.

The topic is always a heated one, and it tends to bring out the usual Mac vs. PC bashing. But according to people I talked to this week here at RSA, … Read more

Updated October 16, 2008: Apple has announced new MacBooks. Get all the details of the new lineup here.

Apple might be set to overhaul the design of its flagship notebooks later this year, according to a report.

AppleInsider believes that the MacBook and the MacBook Pro are due for a face-lift, but doesn't provide specific timing for the new rollout. If Apple follows through, the MacBook will get the most significant overhaul, moving from a plastic chassis to an aluminum one that's already in place on the MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and iMac computers.

It would make sense … Read more

Updated 8:05 AM PDT with additional details on how the plug-ins work.

Apple has added image-editing plug-ins for its Aperture photo editing software as part of a new release of the product.

Aperture 2.1 is a free download for those already running Aperture 2.0, which was released in February. The addition of support for third-party plug-ins gives Aperture users a way to use specialized editing tools not supported by Apple inside the application.

The new release is basically a software development kit for Aperture developers, and has been expected since the release of Aperture 2.0. It … Read more

A team of security researchers has won $10,000 for hacking a MacBook Air in two minutes using an undisclosed Safari vulnerability.

IDG News Service is camped out at CanSecWest in lovely Vancouver, Canada, and has chronicled the exploits (gotta love security puns) of Charlie Miller, Jake Honoroff, and Mark Daniel of Independent Security Evaluators during the Pwn to Own contest sponsored by TippingPoint. The team was able to gain control of a MacBook Air on the second day of the hacking competition, which pitted the Air against Windows Vista and Ubuntu machines.

No one was able to execute code … Read more

The heated debate over whether Apple is tricking you into believing you can see millions of colors on your Mac has come to a quiet conclusion.

The Chicago Tribune noted last week (spotted by AppleInsider) that Apple has settled a lawsuit brought by two professional photographers claiming that the company falsely advertised the capabilities of their MacBook Pros as being able to display "millions of colors."

The plaintiffs claimed that Apple could achieve those heights only through "dithering."

There's an option in the Displays screen, under System Preferences in Mac OS X, in which you … Read more

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has awarded Apple several patents this week on technologies inside the iPod, iMac, and Apple software.

MacNN summarized the four patents, awarded based on applications filed as far back as 2002. The most familiar ones involve the scroll wheel for the iPod and the flexible support arm used on the iMac, but the other two appear to involve sound or video editing on a split screen and speech recognition. Patent reading might just be the missing cure for insomnia.

If you're interested in further details, check out the patents themselves for the … Read more

Look, people, it's 2008: You're responsible for what you install on your PC.

The outrage is spewing forth over Apple's move to include Safari 3.1 as part of its Software Update program. The new twist is that Windows users who never had installed Safari are now seeing it pop up in Software Update, where they are accustomed to seeing updates for iTunes and Quicktime, and that's not sitting well with many who inadvertently installed the browser.

Short attention span syndrome strikes again. This practice, of trying to get people to install your software through coy … Read more

The wireless backup feature that disappeared from Apple's promotional copy for its Leopard operating system has snuck in through the back door.

Macworld did a little poking around with the recently released Mac OS X software update for "Time Machine and Airport" and realized that Time Machine now recognizes a generic USB hard drive plugged into an Airport Extreme base station, allowing Airport Extreme users to wirelessly back up their notebooks with Leopard's Time Machine. You need to mount the external hard drive using Finder to make sure Time Machine can see it, according to Macworld.… Read more

Mac shipments were up dramatically in the fourth quarter of last year, and if recent NPD data is any indication, Apple's doing pretty well again this quarter.

AppleInsider spotted a research note from Pacific Crest Securities citing NPD Group data that Apple's Mac shipments grew 60 percent in February compared with the same period last year, while the entire market grew just 9 percent. NPD's data tracks computer purchases made at U.S. retail stores, which means it excludes much of Dell and all online purchases in general, but it does serve as a weather vane for … Read more