With Apple?s release of iOS 6 you can expect companies such as Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and undoubtedly other carriers to be supporting Passbook?s mobile boarding pass functionality at launch or soon thereafter.
With Passbook, you are able to scan your iPhone or iPod as mobile boarding passes at airport gates for airlines that support the feature. Passbook would even automatically display the boarding pass when you arrive at the airport. Which is pretty cool if you ask me.
A spokesperson for American Airlines reveals it will be ?rolling out an app update in the coming weeks in support of Passbook. In the meantime, customers can still access their mobile boarding passes in the current version of American?s mobile app.?
Delta and other airlines have not officially commented on the situation as of yet.
However, United?s logo is used in Apple?s photos depicting Passbook so it wouldn?t be a big shock if United is on board.
On the rail front, Amtrak?s logo is in Apple?s Passbook pics, as well.
There are some various reports stating that Virgin Australia is already supporting Passbook, which also stores movie tickets, loyalty cards and coupons, in addition to mobile boarding passes.
A Virgin Australia passenger was running a developers? preview version of iOS 6 on his iPhone, and Passbook detected his airline boarding pass and asked whether he wanted to store it in Passbook, Australian Business Traveler reports.
Passbook?s location-based features are geared to surface your mobile boarding passes when you reach the airport so there would be no fumbling around trying to dig out your boarding pass from some long-forgotten email.
?And if your gate changes after you?ve checked in for your flight, Passbook will even alert you to make sure you?re not relaxing in the wrong terminal,? Apple states.
Some airlines might still be uncomfortable about Apple inserting itself with Passbook into the passenger-carrier relationship, but the early signs from American, Delta and Virgin Australia, at least, are that the advantages may outweigh such concerns.
Apple?s next new iPhone will work on the fastest wireless networks around the world which is including the U.S., Europe and Asia, though it is unlikely to be available on every carrier, people familiar with the matter said.
The technical compatibility with so-called LTE networks removes a competitive danger for Apple and gives carriers the chance to sell their fastest data services to Apple’s base of iPhone customers.
Smartphone makers, including market leader have begun offering LTE phones globally. That has given them a selling point that so far Apple has not had.
Many wireless carriers are eager to drive more customers to their networks, which are more efficient and could spur faster growth in data revenue by making it easier for consumers to use services like streaming video.
Apple is expected to show off its latest iPhone, which will also have a slightly larger screen, at a press event in San Francisco on Sept. 12. Many analysts have widely expected that the new phone will support LTE.
It isn’t likely to work with all carriers’ LTE networks in all countries, the people said, though it wasn’t clear which would be left out. If I had to speculate on this however I would say that Verizon and AT&T will be the globally used iPhones and that companies like Tmobile and Sprint will have the iPhone but it will not be global. Just makes sense that top two would have the top type phones.
If you are unhappy with the Special Offers on the Kindle Fire HD, Amazon has announced that they will allow users to pay $15 to opt-out of the ads for the life of the device.
An Amazon spokesperson wrote:.
“We know from our Kindle reader line that customers love our special offers and very few people choose to opt out. We?re happy to offer customers the choice.
The $15 is a one-time payment for owners of the Kindle Fire HD. This will remove ads from the lock screen and from the bottom of the screen in many instances.”
Amazon first announced special offers with the e-ink Kindle and owners could opt out for $30 on the original model.
There was a minor consumer and pundit outcry when users learned they couldn?t remove the special offers. This no doubt was in place to keep the cost of the Kindle HD down but it is interesting that they would not just add into the price of the purchase because who wants ads anyways and for an extra $15 why not?
Google?s smart glasses are going into the new world of fashion. Designer Diane von Furstenberg and others have been using them to record preparations for the upcoming DVF Spring 2013 Fashion Show, and they?ll also be used during that show.
What?s been recorded will be released on September 13, through the DVF Google+ page and on Google?s own YouTube channel. Live images will also be sent during the show, most likely from models that were wearing the smart glasses.
The group AntiSec is claiming that they have released over 1 million Apple Unique Device Identifiers (UDIDs) from which they obtain by breaching the FBI. They claim to have over 12 million IDs in hand which includes things such as the user names, device names, cell phone number, notification tokens and addresses. The hackers issued a statement on the data that was taken:
During the second week of March 2012, a Dell Vostro notebook, used by Supervisor Special Agent Christopher K. Stangl from FBI Regional Cyber Action Team and New York FBI Office Evidence Response Team was breached using the AtomicReferenceArray vulnerability on Java, during the shell session some files were downloaded from his Desktop folder one of them with the name of ?NCFTA_iOS_devices_intel.csv? turned to be a list of 12,367,232 Apple iOS devices including Unique Device Identifiers (UDID), user names, name of device, type of device, Apple Push Notification Service tokens, zipcodes, cellphone numbers, addresses, etc. the personal details fields referring to people appears many times empty leaving the whole list incompleted on many parts. no other file on the same folder makes mention about this list or its purpose.
They did this most likely to show that the FBI is using these devices to track citizens. Also if the information from the hackers is correct then the NCFTA acronym would likely be in reference to the National Cyber-Forensics & Training Alliance, which is a non-profit corporation with experts coming from both the public and private sector to investigate cybercrimes. Do you have a UDID? Are you concerned that you could be one of the twelve million? Click this link to find out if you have: UDID Check.
The Verge has gotten their hands on the Windows 8 and Windows RT OS and created a video to demo the newest Microsoft OS RT version. They also were able to get ahold of the Office 2013 RT on the Samsungs Ativ Tab. There will be many tablets carrying the RT version from Dell, Asus and more. So please watch the video above from the Verge to see more about this new Windows OS on a tablet.
The founder of the Pirate Bay, Gottfrid Svartholm was arrested by Cambodian police on Thursday in Phnom Penh, the city that he made his home several years ago.
local sources state that he was arrested in an apartment right above the Cadillac Bar on the riverfront, a place where he is known to have stayed in the past.
Neither Cambodian nor Swedish authorities have commented on the grounds of the arrest.
The 27-year-old became wanted internationally after he did not return to Sweden to serve his 12 month jail sentence earlier this year.
Gottfrid?s lawyer Ola Salomonsson thinks the arrest could be related to The Pirate Bay case, but nothing has been announced officially.
?As far as I understand it is because he is on an international wanted list,? he said.
Gottfrid has been battling poor health ever since The Pirate Bay appeal in 2010. He failed to attend that hearing due to an illness which left him too sick to leave hospital in Cambodia.
Despite having supported his original absence with a medical certificate, Gottfrid failed to appear at a subsequent hearing. This prompted the Court of Appeal to finalize the initial verdict of one year jail time and a fine of $1.1 million.
All this time the Pirate Bay founder was nowhere to be found. Neither his lawyer nor his old Pirate Bay friends had heard from him. Sources in Cambodia, however, told TorrentFreak last year that Gottfrid was still very ill.
Gottfrid should have returned to Sweden to begin serving his sentence January 2nd this year, but again he failed to appear. Now the question is how ill is Gottfrid really? Will he be serving the majority of his jail sentence in a hospital or infirmary in the jail itself? It is going to be very interesting to see how bad this illness really is.
The Vietnamese site Tinhte.vn has posted a video of what it claims to be redesigned headphones for the new iPhone which is expected in late September.
The video shows the new headphones and compares them to the old headphones provided on the iPhone 4S. A translation of the video is provided below:
?In my hands are the new earphones for the iPhone 5 that is about to come out – Apple’s next generation of iPod [sic]. These will replace the current earphones that are on the market. These are manufactured at Phax Co factory in Vietnam. They have the appearance of a horse’s head, not like earbuds. When they are worn, they have a much smaller profile. They have the appearance of a fully integrated, single unit – there’s no part that looks like it would come apart – not like earbuds; the integrated design is characteristic of Apple products. Here I have the old earphones for comparison. The new ones are much smaller; when they are worn, they do not hurt the way earbuds do. You can see on the old ones the surface is a separate part that looks like it can be detached – not like the small surface of the new one. The old earphones were mostly made in China, with some in Vietnam. But the new ones are clearly made in Vietnam. (Reading from the wires): “Designed by Apple in California, assembled in Vietnam.”
This site states that the new headphones are manufactured in Vietnam which are also written on the cables themselves. According to Tinhte, the new headphones are being manufactured in a Foxconn plant in Vietnam.
AppNet Rhino is a collaboration between two Croatian companies – Planet 1107, who coded the app, and Marko Prljic of TwinkleTap, who dealt with the design duties. Now this is not the first iOS app to support App.net, the social post scheduling app Buffer was updated to support the Twitter-like service, not designed from scratch.
Actually there have been a number of other App.net apps have been submitted to Apple for approval, but AppNet Rhino has won the race to be first into consumers? hands.
This app features a home timeline, a mentions stream and access to the global feed. There?s not much else as far as features goes, and it is said to be a bit less responsive than a competing app that have been tested in beta. There have also been complaints that feeds occasionally fail to load within the app. So, there?s room for improvement for this app.
AppNet Rhino is a free download.
Freesat, which allows customers who buy its set-top boxes to access satellite TV services for free, will announce the partnership when it unveils a hi-tech new set-top box tomorrow . This new device can give users access to Netflix and other on-demand services, which allow viewers to rent films and TV shows by downloading them over the internet direct to a TV.
The move is likely to upset BSkyB, which already considers Netflix as a significant threat. BSkyB also has a history of battling with the BBC where it believes the corporation is behaving in an overly commercial manner.
Freesat?s new set-top box is the company?s biggest step forward since it launched four years ago. As well as on-demand downloads, it will allow viewers to scroll backwards through TV shows listings to watch them up to eight days after they air. Similar services are offered by Virgin Media and YouView, but Freesat will be the only satellite television company to offer this type of service.
Freesat launched in 2008 to offer homes with satellite dishes free-to-air television. It has sold 2.6m set-top boxes or Freesat TVs to date, and directly targets BSkyB customers who are looking to cut their monthly bills.
