Apple sells 5 million iPhone 5 phones in first weekend

Apple sold more than 5 million iPhone 5 phones since the highly anticipated device went on sale on Friday, setting a new sales record for the device, Apple announced Monday.

Over the weekend, the company outpaced the 4 million iPhone 4S units that it sold during last year's opening weekend, though the numbers are a bit skewed. This year's iPhone was simultaneously launched in the United States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and the United Kingdom, while last year's launch did not include Hong Kong and Singapore.

Investors viewed the iPhone 5's opening weekend as somewhat of a disappointment. Wall Street analystshad anticipated a slightly more robust opening weekend, with most projections in the 6 million range.

Shares of Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) fell by more than 1% by then end of trading on Monday.

Click here to continue reading: http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/24/technology/apple-iphone-5-sales/index.html

Best time to trade in your iPhone is ... now

Rumors are rampant that Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) will announce the iPhone 5 on September 12, with a release date soon after that. But if you want to offset the cost of your new phone by scoring the highest value possible for your old one, trade-in experts say you'll need to lock in your trade now -- before everyone else gets the same idea.

"We always get a rush of people who wait to get a quote until they have the new [iPhone] in their hands," said Jeff Trachsel, the chief marketing officer for trade-in serviceNextWorth. "But as the volume increases, the value of your phone declines."

Trading in now will help you avoid that rush and score more cash. Most trade-in services simply ask for you details about your device, like its storage size and condition, and offer up a price that's guaranteed for 3 weeks to a month. In turn, the companies typically refurbish and resell the devices.

Smart traders play arbitrage: Lock in a price now, then wait until you have the new phone in hand to actually send in your old model.

Old iPhones hold their value remarkably well. At NextWorth, a 16 GB iPhone 4S in good condition currently fetches $274. Rival site Gazelle is offering $277 for an AT&T phone or $260 for a Verizon or Sprint device.

Go one model older, to the iPhone 4, and you can fetch $175 at NextWorth for an AT&T phone or $162 for a Verizon phone. Gazelle will pay $160 to $165.

Click here to continue reading: http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/20/technology/iphone-trade/index.html?iid=HP_LN&hpt=te_t1

Apple account hack raises concern about cloud storage

On Friday night, Wired technology journalist Mat Honan was brutally hacked. In a chain of events that Honan would unravel in the following days, hackers took advantage of security holes at Amazon and Apple to gain access to his iCloud account. They then took over his Gmail account, remotely wiped all data from his MacBook Air, iPhone and iPad, and took over his Twitter account as well as the Twitter account of his former employer, Gizmodo.

The incident might seem small on its surface -- just one person's information, not a huge data breach of credit card numbers. But this one very public incident, thoroughly documented by Honan in a Wired article, could be a wake-up call to many who store their information with cloud-based services, including Amazon, Apple and Google.

"My experience leads me to believe that cloud-based systems need fundamentally different security measures," said Honan. "Password-based security mechanisms — which can be cracked, reset and socially engineered — no longer suffice in the era of cloud computing."

The hackers used fairly basic techniques to accomplish the hack. They found Honan's home address and e-mail address online, and after some back and forth with Amazon tech support, used it to get the last four digits of Honan's credit card number. They called Apple customer support pretending to be Honan and used those four numbers along with same billing address to verify his identity, gaining access to Honan's iCloud account and the associated .Me account. The .Me account was Honan's backup e-mail for his Gmail account. Once they were in his Gmail, the hackers could reset passwords for all the key accounts that used Gmail, including Twitter accounts.

Click here to continue reading: http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/06/tech/mobile/icloud-security-hack/index.html

Facebook earnings: Good, but not good enough

 Facebook's shares plummeted to all-time lows in after hours trading after the company's first quarterly earnings report failed to wow investors.

Shares of Facebook (FB) fell more than 10% to around $24 -- nearly 40% below the company's initial public offering price.

Facebook did beat analysts' revenues expectations slightly and earnings matched forecasts, but that was apparently not enough for Wall Street.

Behind the numbers: Facebook is still posting strong growth. It generated $1.18 billion in second quarter revenues, up 32% from a year ago.

Related: Facebook analyst: Sell to buy in 2 months

And while Facebook reported a net loss of $157 million due mainly to $1.3 billion in compensation expenses tied to stock-based pay following the IPO, the company did generate a profit of 12 cents per share when excluding those costs.

Analysts were expecting sales of $1.15 billion and earnings (backing out the compensation charges) of 12 cents per share.

Zuckerberg addresses concerns: CEO Mark Zuckerberg highlighted the company's investment in research and development as a positive.

"Our goal is to help every person stay connected and every product they use be a great social experience," Zuckerberg said in a release. "That's why we're so focused on investing in our priorities of mobile, platform and social ads to help people have these experiences with their friends."

Click here to continue reading: http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/26/technology/facebook-earnings/index.htm

The myth of the 'drunk phone'

Some young adults are so fond of their expensive smartphones that they take a cheaper backup phone with them to bars and leave their fancier phones at home where they are safe from spilled vodka tonics, pickpockets and uncoordinated drunk people.

That's according to consumer-behavior expert Laura Krajecki of the Starcom MediaVest Group, who stumbled upon the trend while researching beer and shared it with AdAge. "They take what they call their 'drunk phone' ... because they don't want to lose their smartphone," she said.

CNN's independent research yielded different results, however.

An exhausting, though hardly exhaustive, survey of bar patrons in San Francisco this past weekend turned up zero people who had opted to carry a beater phone out with them on a night of drinking. Nor did any interview subjects know other people who had ever done such a thing.

But as seasoned bartender Jerome Bishop put it, "I've never heard of anybody doing that, but it doesn't mean they don't."

It's possible the people in watering holes visited by this reporter were not young enough (are college students more likely to binge drink and lose things?), well-off enough (a stream of secondary phones can add up), or beta testing top secret phones for their Silicon Valley employers.

Interestingly, while the mythical back-up phone was nowhere to be found, carrying multiple phones was not uncommon. Two friends at Churchill bar were hauling around their assigned work phones -- both BlackBerrys, of course -- in addition to their personal handsets.

Many people admitted to having lost their phones while drinking in the past but were still set on taking their smartphones with them on nights out.

Click here to continue reading: http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/17/tech/mobile/drunk-phones/index.html

Leaked documents reveal 'Xbox 720' plans

 A 56-page document from Microsoft, dating back to mid-2010, reveals company plans for an "Xbox 720" gaming console. The recently leaked document has been removed since its discovery.

Notable features include Xbox SmartGlass, Blu-ray support, 3-D glasses, cloud-based gaming and an improved Kinect system. If the Xbox 720 described in the document is true, Microsoft's next-generation entertainment console could change the future of gaming.

The console will be loaded with a 1080p output with full 3D support, according to The Verge. The image above shows what the follow-up to the Xbox 360 might look like.

The sleek black Xbox 720 portrayed in the documents will seemingly be the only entertainment device you'll need. Microsoft's goal is to sell 100 million units at around $299 each in 2013. New Kinect 2 hardware will incorporate better voice recognition, hardware processing and stereo imaging.

Click here for more information: http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/18/tech/gaming-gadgets/leaked-documents-reveal-xbox-plans/index.html

The high-school blogger who's been cracking Apple's secrets

Trying to scope out Apple's (AAPL) product plans in advance is serious business for a small army of tech journalists, one that has been dominated in the past by the team that covers the company for the Wall Street Journal.

But in the walk-up to this week's World Wide Developers Conference, everybody -- including the Journal -- got scooped by an 18-year-old kid named Mark Gurman who goes to high school in Los Angeles and writes on the side for Seth Weintraub's 9to5Mac.

Let's review, with the benefit of hindsight, the WWDC predictions Gurman posted over the past month:

Seven out of eight ain't bad, and I suspect that the one that we don't yet know about -- his report that Apple is bringing the Retina display to the rest of its notebook line -- will eventually be proven true.

I ran into Gurman in San Francisco, where he is attending Apple's developer sessions. He clammed up when I asked him where he gets his stories. But Weintraub -- who hired Gurman two years ago when he realized the teenager had his finger on Apple's pulse -- was more forthcoming. Some of his stories come from sources inside Apple, but most are based on what used to be called old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting -- poring over Apple's published documents and building a network of Apple developers and parts suppliers that he hammers relentlessly.

Click here to continue reading: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/12/the-high-school-blogger-whos-been-cracking-apples-secrets/?iid=SF_F_LN

Facebook employees have millions. Now what?

When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg rang the Nasdaq opening bell on Friday to mark Facebook's public debut, he also rang in a crop of new millionaires and billionaires.

It's a rite of passage for Silicon Valley's most successful entrepreneurs and the employees who joined their ventures early -- and so is learning how to handle that fortune. Those who have been there before are full of advice.

"Buy one thing you've always wanted," suggests Karl Jacobs, a serial entrepreneur and early Facebook (FB) advisor. "A lot of people don't celebrate the fact that they've worked really hard."

Color CEO Bill Nguyen -- who sold his last company, Lala, to Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) in 2009 -- has a quirky suggestion: don't buy a house. Build one.

"It slows you down," he says. "All these things happen to you so quickly, you don't get the time to think about it."

Nguyen took his own advice. He used part of his fortune to build athoroughly customized tropical compound on the shores of Maui's Mokuleia Bay.

Click here to continue reading: http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/21/technology/facebook-ipo-millionaires/index.htm

Own an iPod? Then you're suing Apple

If you're one of the millions who purchased an iPod between September 12, 2006, and March 31, 2009, you might be in for a surprising email from RealNetworks.

The company, which developed Real Player and the service Harmony, has officially enlisted iPod owners in a class-action lawsuitagainst Apple -- though you do have the right to recuse yourself.

Why RealNetworks? Back in 2004, the company created the music service Harmony, a digital rights management (DRM) translation service. It allowed users to play songs downloaded from the RealPlayer music store on Apple's iPod.

But as any iPod user knows, songs must be loaded onto iTunes to be played on Apple's devices. That's because Apple created an iPod firmware update not too long after the announcement of Harmony, which blocked it and other music services from uploading songs to the iPod.

Several iPod users filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple, accusing the company of unfairly blocking competition. Now -- eight years later -- it's gaining steam.

Click here to continue reading:http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/10/tech/gaming-gadgets/apple-ipod-lawsuit/index.html

AT&T expands into wireless home security, automation

 AT&T is joining the expanding field of home security and automation, introducing a wireless service that will let homeowners use their mobile devices to remotely set alarms, turn on lights or even shut off water.

Called AT&T Digital Life, the service will connect users with a vast array of domestic devices and appliances, including cameras, door locks, smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and thermostats.

It will run on AT&T's IP-based wireless platform and can be accessed via smartphones, tablets or PCs. And despite being from AT&T, it will work regardless of the user's wireless carrier.

The company plans to begin trials of the service in Atlanta and Dallas this summer.

"AT&T Digital Life will change the way people live, work and play -- and meets a clear need in the market," said Kevin Petersen, senior vice president of Digital Life for AT&T Mobility. "The service is smart, simple and customer-centric -- freeing homeowners to do the things they want to do without compromising on the things they need to do to care for family and home."

Digital Life joins other existing products and wireless companies that are taking advantage of people's increasing reliance on mobile devices.

Click here to continue reading: http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/07/tech/mobile/att-home-security/index.html

The Internet, corporations and the upside of a zombie apocalypse

For someone who likes to talk about the virtues of disconnecting, the media critic Douglas Rushkoff seems surprisingly always on. When I visited him at his storefront office near his home in Hastings on Hudson, New York, he was preparing to teach a new class, getting ready for a BBC interview, writing an essay, staring down a pile of articles to read, trying to figure out his new iPhone, and hurrying to finish his third book in three years -- a graphic novel called ADD, which revolves around gaming culture, celebrity and the pharmaceutical industry. "It also asks the question," he says, "what if attention deficit disorder weren't a bug, but a feature?"

The hyper-speed hyperlinked life is familiar ground for Rushkoff, whose first book "Cyberia" made him a popular tour guide to the Internet in the early 1990s, and an early prognosticator of its radical potential. But much has changed between the awkward days of "the 'Net" -- then a non-commercial collection of public networks accessed by local ISPs -- and the overloaded era of Facebook, YouTube and iPhones. If Rushkoff is well-versed in the language underneath the "digital revolution," he's also become one of its most outspoken critics.

"A society that looked at the Internet as a path toward highly articulated connections and new methods of creating meaning is instead finding itself disconnected, denied deep thinking, and drained of enduring values," Rushkoff writes in his recent "Program or Be Programmed." His remedy is simple, if ambitious: once people begin to understand how software works, "they start to recognize the programs at play everywhere else. From the economy andeducation to politics and government, all systems have embedded purposes. The less we recognize them, the more we mistake them for given circumstances."

Click here to continue reading: http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/03/tech/web/vice-douglas-rushkoff/index.html

Wireless carriers alerting users about data-overage charges

If you like streaming lots of audio or video to your cell phone and you don't have an unlimited data plan, you might end up with a bad case of "bill shock" when your wireless carrier hits you with overage charges.

In October, under pressure from the Federal Communications Commission, U.S. carriers agreed to start alerting customers by text message when they're getting close to hitting their plan caps on data, phone minutes and text messages. This would allow users to either curb their use for the rest of the month or switch to a higher (and pricier) tier before they incur overage charges.

The carriers also agreed to fully implement these alerts within a year.

So, it's been six months. How are they doing?

Last week, the FCC started publishing updates on carriers' progress toward implementing these alerts.

Among the four major carriers, T-Mobile has gotten the most done: It's set up overage alerts for voice, data and international roaming plans. Verizon has implemented them only for data and international roaming. AT&T has alerts only for data plan overages and Sprint only for international roaming.

None of the minor U.S. wireless carriers has implemented any alerts, according to the FCC.

Click here to continue reading: http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/30/tech/mobile/wireless-data-alerts-gahran/index.html

Draw Something: Celebrity quiz

With more than 35 million users, the Pictionary-like app has taken smartphone and tablet users by storm. Some play up to 50 games at once, taking hundreds of turns with each opponent.

Whether you play the game or not, it's fun to look at all the different ways clues are portrayed and try to guess the correct answers. So we've put together this quiz to test your skills: 20 celebrities, 20 portraits, all straight from Draw Something. How many can you guess? Click through the gallery above (don't forget to hit the double arrow to go to the second page) and find out.

Click here to check it out: http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/27/tech/gaming-gadgets/draw-something-celebrity-quiz-ireport/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/20/tech/web/tech-check-podcast/index.html

This week, the Tech Check podcast hurtles its way through the internet's series of tubes for the final time.

Doug Gross, John Sutter and Stephanie Goldberg do their best to give their weekly digital gabfest a proper send-off, taking a look back at just a few of the significant changes that have taken place in the tech and Web worlds since the podcast started about a year and a half ago.

Whether it was the the way social networking exploded, the expanding popularity, definition and goals of video-gaming or mobile technology's increasing influence, it's been a paradigm-shifting time in the tech world and it's been a blast getting to sit down and try to make sense of (and sometimes make light of) it all.

Click here to continue reading: http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/20/tech/web/tech-check-podcast/index.html

'Draw Something' update adds chat, photo capturing, sharing

When Zynga purchased Draw Something from creator OMGPOP a few weeks ago, the two companies promised that the acquisition would bring new features to the game, and today they delivered.

As promised, the popular pictionary-style game has been updated to add commenting, the ability to save drawings to your photo library, and the ability to share drawings on Facebook or Twitter directly through the app.

"There are more features people want in the game, and there's no way we could scale enough people fast enough," OMGPOP CEO Dan Porter told Mashable shortly after the acquisition. "The game is so large that you need a really big scale."

At the time, Porter told Mashable that the company was looking at adding photo sharing, saving and chat in the future. Chat was one of the most desired features the company was looking at adding, but also one of the most difficult.

"Chat is a big part of the plan, but tricky because you don't want to break the guessing cycle of the game," Porter said. The chat feature now shows up on the "Drawsome!" page after you've completed guessing a word in the game.

Click here to continue reading: http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/19/tech/mobile/draw-something-app-updated/index.html

Apple: Update will fix Mac 'Flashback' virus

Apple says a new software update provides tools to get rid of the so-called "Flashback" virus that has infected hundreds of thousands of Mac computers.

In a post on its support forums, Apple said the update to the Java software platform "removes the most common variants" of the Flashback malware.

Last week, a Russian security company reported that as many as 600,000 Macs, most of them in the United States and Canada, had been infected by Flashback, a Trojan horse virus that infiltrates computers, secretly giving someone else remote access to them.

Flashback was first discovered in September, disguising itself as an Adobe Flash Player installer.

Apple recommended the new update to all Mac users who have Java installed.

Throughout their history, Macs have been relatively free from most of the viruses and other malware that have targeted PCs, with cybercriminals preferring to go after the larger number of computer users on that system.

But the rise of Macs has also seen an uptick in the number of Mac users targeted.

"Malware authors have targeted the Mac OS for quite some time; however, the recent OSX.Flashback.K infections indicate a very significant shift to the current threat landscape, which is dominated by malware on the Windows operating system," Web security firm Symantec posted on its blog.

Click here to continue reading: http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/13/tech/web/apple-mac-virus-fix/index.html

Virus found in fake Android version of 'Angry Birds: Space'

Android users beware. Download the wrong version of your favorite pig-killing game and the birds won't be the only ones who are angry.

"Angry Birds: Space," the latest installment of the insanely popular mobile game, is being used to mask some fairly nasty malware, according to security experts and Rovio, the maker of "Angry Birds."

Graham Cluley, an analyst with Web security firm Sophos, wrote on the company's blog Thursday that they had discovered fake versions of the game on unofficial app stores. The fake games contain a "Trojan horse" virus.

A post on Rovio's blog on Thursday also warned fans to watch out for fake versions of the game, urging them to download the new title from their official store.

According to Sophos, the Trojan horse, which it identified in a file called Andr/KongFu-L, appears to be a fully functional version of the game, but instead installs a virus on the user's smartphone or tablet.

From there, the code tries to install more malware that essentially puts the phone or tablet computer under the control of the cybercriminals behind it, Cluley wrote.

"It feels like we have to keep reminding Android users to be on their guard against malware risks, and to be very careful, especially when downloading applications from unofficial Android markets," he said.

click here to continue reading: http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/12/tech/gaming-gadgets/angry-birds-virus-android/index.html

Hey Bravo, Silicon Valley is too boring for TV

The tech world has been up in arms this past week about "Silicon Valley," an upcoming Bravo reality show documenting the lives of five aspiring entrepreneurs making their way in the world of Bay Area startups.

The TV show is co-produced by Randi Zuckerberg, former marketing director of Facebook and sister of its founder, Mark Zuckerberg. Its brief preview showcases the glamorous life of a tech startup founder: Lots of parties, alcohol, attractive women and a social scene that is like "high school, but it's only the smart kids."

The problem: The tech industry isn't like that at all.

Here's how tech-company founders usually succeed in Silicon Valley: They spend endless hours in front of a computer building products people want to use. Alas, this doesn't make for interesting TV.

Hence all the Hollywood cliches. Computers on TV shows and in movies beep when a button is pressed. Characters seem able to type at a frenetic pace. Passwords can always be guessed within three attempts -- and always just in time to prevent a disaster.

Click here to continue reading: http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/10/tech/innovation/silicon-valley-tv-cashmore/index.html

Instagram now available for Android devices

After 18 months of waiting, users of Android phones and tablets can finally crash the Instagram party.

On Tuesday the fast-growing, photo-sharing network for the iPhone and iPad finally launched an app for Android devices. The free application works with Android version 2.2 and higher and is available for download at Google Play, Google's new online store for digital media.

"We've been meticulous about translating the Instagram experience to the Android platform," said a post Tuesday on Instagram's blog.

"The Android app offers an extremely familiar Instagram experience when compared to the iOS app. You'll find all the same exact filters and community as our iOS version."

Instagram lets users enhance their mobile photos with filters, share them with their friends or other people and comment on friends' pictures. Like Twitter, Instagram also allows people to follow other users.

Click here to check it out: http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/03/tech/mobile/instagram-android/index.html