For the two or three folks out there who may have been on vacation in an Internet-free zone this week, Apple made a bunch of announcements at its World Wide Developers Conference. These included a preview of its coming iOS 6 software for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, hardware updates to the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air laptops and a new MacBook Pro with the super-sharp Retina display screen. And the next version of Mac OS X — Mountain Lion — drops next month for less than $20.
But while Apple may be hogging the limelight with new product announcements, Android is quietly humming along. According to a tweet by Android guru Andy Rubin, Google is now activating more than 900,000 new Android devices a day. The current number shows an increase from even this past February, with 850,000 activations per day. The general number of activated Android gadgets is currently thought to be around 390 million.
If you have multiple gadgets that need Internet access and you have Verizon Wireless, the company’s new Share Everything data plans may be for you, as it offers unlimited voice minutes, text, video and picture messaging for 10 Verizon Wireless mobile devices.
Social media is a great way to keep in touch with family members around the world, but be careful who can see your profile. The F.B.I. has a warning up on its site for a little hustle known as “The Grandparent Scam,” in which evildoers often use information gleaned from social media sites to convince grandparents that their grandchildren are in danger in foreign countries and need money wired immediately. Yeah, these old cons never really go away, do they?
A few last new nuggets here: An article on the MIT Technology Review site suggests that malicious software has become too sophisticated for old school antivirus programs. The Amazon Cloud Player app is finally available for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Incoming Seton Hall freshmen are all getting brand new Nokia Lumia 900 smartphones, thanks to the university’s Mobile Computing Initiative. Blizzard Entertainment dropped the banhammer on several thousand user accounts of Diablo III players suspected of “found to be cheating or using hacks, bots, or modifications in any form…” And speaking of hacks, there was this Dutch artist and his deceased cat…I know the pet has passed on, but this sorta thing just makes me wanna go save living animals in need.
Hey, look at the calendar! This week was Patch Tuesday and it sounds like Microsoft had a few big Band-Aids to dispense. Let’s be careful out there, people.
