If you go for the high-end, stylistic gadgets, then this one might interest your eye. Called the MNEMOSYNE, it is a 16 gigabyte USB storage cube that literally makes you disassemble it to actually get the USB drive which is inside the layers that make the cube – no, we are not kidding. Designed by Italy-based Japanese designers Toshi Satoji and Katsuya Masaki, each cube has a unique puzzle pattern and are carved from one single block of aluminium.

The only problem is that it will set you back 1,000,000 yen – or AU$13,061.69 – just to get this USB shape. But hey, if you have that much money to burn, this is the one thing you need. More images of the cube are below.

Source: DVICE

The RTM version is the final version, meaning that this version is set to be the smoothest and mostly bug-free than the Release Candidate and the Beta versions. Partner connections like TechNet and MSDN are set to get their hands on the RTM version shortly after.

And what about you, those who don’t have access to those partner connections? Someone might put up a torrent of it so you can download it.

Windows 7 is set to reverse the trend after the disastrous Windows Vista and its PR, and many of the beta testers are happy with the new changes, including performance improvements and new features. While there will be at least six versions of the product, only Home Premium, Professional (which is like Business, just renamed) and Ultimate versions will be out to the public – but Ultimate will be the harder one to find in retail markets.

Local police have confirmed that a 26-year-old female Apple Store employee has been shot in an armed robbery that occurred at the Apple Store Clarendon in Arlington, Virginia, in the back service entrance. The suspect has been said to rang a doorbell at the service entrance and shot the employee as she opened the door.

The employee suffered a wound to her right shoulder, and was sent to hospital where she is now in a stable condition, but her injuries have not been considered as life-threatening.

The Washington Post has said that only two employees were at the store, with the other employee calling the police after hearing the gunshot. The robbery happened 15 minutes after the store opened, at 10:15 am, with thirty or so customers inside the store and at least a dozen employees inside, according to a customer talking to the newspaper.

According to WTTG5, a Fox affiliate, the suspect has been said to be a “skinny black male in beige clothing. They say he may have had a fake beard.” He is also said to be between the ages of 35 and 45, wearing a dark baseball cap, and fled on foot.

Any person with information about the shooting or the suspect is asked to call the police.

Security footage may be released to aide the investigation in the shooting.

The main five browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera) have not been able to agree on the specific format that all browsers will support, according to the editor of the new HTML5 specification Ian Hickson from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

“After an inordinate amount of discussions, both in public and privately, on the situation regarding codecs for <video> and <audio> in HTML5, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that there is no suitable codec that all vendors are willing to implement and ship,” Hickson wrote.

“I have therefore removed the two subsections in the HTML5 spec in which codecs would have been required, and have instead left the matter undefined, as has in the past been done with other features like <img> and image formats, <embed> and plugin APIs, or Web fonts and font formats.”

The new tags - <audio> and <video> – have been included in the new specification after a change in the web landscape from text to visual content when HTML4 was written up. Before the new tags were introduced, people had to use third-party plug-ins, like Microsoft’s Silverlight and Adobe’s Flash, to play video and audio content, with Flash being the preferred standard to play the media files.

While it was suggested that the new codecs would be the Ogg Vorbis (audio) and the Ogg Theora (video) formats as they do not require royalty payments to use them, Apple has refused to support it as patents associated with Vorbis could be used against Apple when it implements it in some of their products.

For video, both Opera and Mozilla refused to make the H.264 video compression the standard as it does need to pay royalties to implement it in their products, but also distribution issues. Chrome does support both the Theora and H.264 formats, but also has a hard time on how to distribute it.

Microsoft, as the bane of all web standards, has not decided to make any commitment with the <video> tag, with Internet Explorer 8 not readily supporting HTML5, despite the newest versions of its rivals do support the latest rewrite to the HTML language.

However, Hickson concludes that it would take several years for this to develop, but sees both Theora and H.264 being both the “de facto codec” for all of Web video. Setting the standard for the <audio> tag, however, is dependent on mapping the common codecs used on all browsers, instead of proposing any at all.

But, it all depends on the browser makers to implement the codecs on their products. With the latest release of Mozilla 3.5, there is support for the <audio> and <video> tags using the Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora formats, along with some of the other HTML 5 tags.

George Hotz (geohot) has announced that he has successfully found a way to jailbreak the iPhone 3GS, following his success to be the first person to successfully unlock the original iPhone, right before the iPhone Dev Team releasing their jailbreak, after the team decided to put their jailbreak on hold for the iPhone 3.1 update.

“Normally I don't make tools for the general public, and rather wait for the dev team to do it. But guys, whats up with waiting until 3.1? That isn't how the game is played,” he wrote in a blog post. “We release, Apple fixes, we find new holes. It isn’t worth waiting because you might have the ‘last’ hole in the iPhone. What last hole… this isn’t golf.”

The new process, called “purplera1n”, is currently Windows-only – except for Windows 7, so those running on a Mac won’t be able to get it (without the need of virtualisation software like Parallels, but we don’t know if this works or not). As well, this is IN BETA – meaning that BACKUP everything that you have on the iPhone before running this; and that it will not free you from your carrier.

Other requirements include that you need the latest iTunes installed and iPhone OS 3 (which should be pre-installed in your iPhone 3GS).

You can read the instructions in the blog post announcing this, and also you can find where to get it at the “purplera1n” website.

Apple is working round the clock in fixing a security hole in the iPhone operating system that could allow an attacker to remotely have root access to the device and install and run unsigned software code that could potentially allow your iPhone to be part of a botnet.

The new security hole was found by Charles Miller, security researcher and co-author of the Mac Hacker’s Handbook, at the SySan Conference in Singapore, according to a report by Computerworld. He, however, has left no description on the attack, citing an agreement with Apple not to disclose it.

The security vulnerability could allow the attacker to run code written in the SMS over a mobile operator’s network, and could include commands that include telling the attacker your location using the GPS, eavesdrop on your conversations with the microphone, or make the phone part of a mobile botnet capable of sending DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks on a site.

Despite finding the vulnerability, he says that the iPhone’s OS, which is a stripped down version of the Mac OS X operating system, is a more secure version of the OS than computers running the full-blown version of the operating system as it offers fewer options for attackers.

It also have limited features, including no support for Adobe Flash and Java, which could be exploited by attackers,. The phone has also been designed to store memory digitally signed by Apple only.

Apple is said to be working on a fix for this vulnerability before Miller discusses it at the Black Hat USA conference in Las Vegas.

The company, Hanwang Technology, owns the trademark “i-phone” – and that could make it illegal for Apple to sell the phone under that name.

However, Apple does have the trademark “iPhone”, which it filed in late 2002, but that trademark only covered the hardware and software on the phone, not the phone itself, according to China’s trademark office. Hanwang’s patent was filed two years later, and covers phone equipment, including handsets.

To sell the phone, according to a intellectual property law agency talking to ComputerWorld, Apple has to reach an agreement with Hanwang, or apply for the trademark given to Hanwang to be revoked, and that takes up to three to four years to process and that is unlikely to succeed.

Hanwang, however, has said that Apple has not contacted them about the trademark issue, nor has the trademark office in China contacted them of any action done by Apple. A spokesperson for the company has not said what were the company’s plans if Apple does sell the phone in the country.

Apple previously had to settle the name “iPhone” with Cisco Systems, after its subsidiary Linksys owned the name “iPhone” for their VoIP phones (despite not actually using it before 2005, when it just slapped a sticker on them), when the first iPhone came out in the United States. That matter was settled out of court, allowing both parties to use the name.

The iPhone is proven to be a popular phone in China, with many of them being smuggled into the country and unlocked. According to the consulting firm Ovum, there is an estimated one million iPhones in the country, mainly owned by the wealthy and urban Chinese.

The date, confirmed to be on July 17, 2009, will see phones to be sold through 3 stores, their dealers, 3 direct and via their website. While the date has been confirmed, pricing is said to be “announced closer to the launch date”.

“Since we announced that 3 mobile would be selling the iPhone 3G S we have been inundated with customers who have pre-registered their interest in this device,” Nigel Dews, CEO for VHA, said in a press statement. “Our commitment is to give our loyal customers the great value and benefits they deserve and have come to expect from the 3 brand.”

Users can pre-register their interest at their website at http://www.three.com.au/iphone.

With 3 having the iPhone 3GS on sale, this brings Australia the only country that has the iPhone to be available on all major carriers, with many other countries being locked to one (or two) carriers. While Telstra signed to them directly, Optus and Vodafone were helped by their parent companies’ regional deals with Apple. 3 and Virgin Mobile (owned 100 percent by Optus) scored the iPhone thanks to their links to Optus (for Virgin) or Vodafone (for 3).

In the US, it is currently under the AT&T network, with rumours that Verizon could possibly be the second carrier; while New Zealand iPhone users are using the Vodafone network, thanks to a regional deal. Vodafone, in New Zealand, is the one out of three mobile carriers in that country, with the other one being Telecom NZ and the newly-launched 2degrees.

Shares in Global Gaming Factory X (GGF) rocketed up by 150 percent after news of its acquisition of The Pirate Bay’s assets, but reports are now coming in that the Aktietorget, the Swedish equity marketplace, are now investigating insider trading claims.

The Aktietorget shut down trading of the company’s stock last week after seeing unusual large amounts of trading, without any news that would cause that much activity, and once reopened – its announcement brought it share price higher than before, as it came to a huge shock to both the internet community and investors.

Indications are pointing that the GGF it is only wants the domain name, users and the revenue that they (hope) to generate after switching to a new business model – which is where many Pirate Bay users express dissatisfaction, with some saying that they are leaving the site for good.

It seems that the news had been leaked ahead of the announcement, despite rules saying that everybody has to be given the essential information at exactly the same time, according to The Swedish Wire. If the acquisition goes through, it might face another investigation to see if it is a legitimate business after the site is suspected of committing criminal acts – which revolve around copyright infringement.

“There are reasons to suspect that information was leaked,” executive vice president for Aktietorget, Peter Gönczi, told the Dangens Industri newspaper.

“Aktietorget wants to make sure that the companies that are traded on the list are managing legitimate businesses,” he continues.

According to the chart (see below), shares have dropped after rising to their highest closing price of 0.45 SEK to close on July 1 on 0.25 SEK, a 34.21 percent drop – which could be related to the news of insider trading within the company.

In what has been a turbulent week for The Pirate Bay, they have launched quietly their anonymous virtual private network, IPREDator, to the public. The new network, like we reported before, hopes to give you anonymous access to the internet, so the ISPs won’t be able to trace your steps.

It basically works like a bartering system, you get anonymous access to the internet by exchanging your IP address from your ISP to their anonymous IP address (i.e. anon1337.vpn.ipredator.se), and it only costs € 15 for 3 months. The service, because of taxes, is only available for those within the European Union.

According to the website, the VPN uses 128-bit encryption, which is used in most commercial websites like online banking, and it does not use “any American software neither for encryption nor for any other part” – taking a jab at both Macs and Windows (both are developed by American companies).

Is this legal, though? Well, according to them, it is a “Swedish broadband subscription offered over the Internet. This means that the legal framework mainly consists of The Electronic Communications Act 2003 389, and that under Swedish law, it does not have to keep an “ordinary customer database”.

But also, they say that none of the data will be given to authorities unless they are forced to, and only then, data that you supplied when you signed up for the VPN service will be given – and nothing else.

Bowing to pressure, users have asked to delete their accounts over the fears that their logs could be handed over to the RIAA and other international anti-piracy organisations; despite the Pirate Bay says that no personal data will be given to the new owners.

“We also want to point out that we have no logs of anything, no personal data will be transferred in the eventual sale (since no personal data is kept). So no need to be worried for safety,” one of the Pirate Bay admins wrote in a blog post.

“We understand that you’re upset. But we have reasons to do this that we cannot ignore. We need to keep the site going and this is the only working alternative. We cannot finance the growth of the site anymore and we cannot back down.”

“The only way is up and this the only route to that place,” the writer continued.

From the new features comes new things for developers to play around and enjoy in the new version of Firefox 3.5, and because of this, TECHGEEK.com.au will now bring you up to speed what developers can now use in the latest version of the open source browser.

HTML 5

While the <header> and <footer> blocks are not known to be supported yet, the <video> and <audio> tags are now supported, allowing developers to add and embed audio and video formats to HTML documents without the need of Flash.

However, this is limited to Ogg Theora, Ogg Vorbis and WAV formats, but we are expecting that this should increase as HTML5 support continues. Also supported is the drag and drop API in HTML5, the use of the HTML 5 offline resource specifications, and the canvas elements – including shadow effects.

CSS

The Gecko engine, which renders the page you are visiting for Firefox, adds the support of CSS media queries, allowing the same CSS to be used, but inside there are specific areas that are rendered for print, screen and/or projectors. Also the :before and :after pseudo-elements have been updated to meet CSS 2.1 specifications, and support for “ch” to be used as a unit of length.

For CSS3, the new @font-face rule is supported, so sites with fonts that are not in the user’s computer can be used on the site, without the need of having the font – eliminating the use of sIFR and image text replacement. “opacity”, “text-shadow” and “word-wrap” are also now supported.

For Mozilla CSS extensions, the –moz-opacity has been dropped for the opacity property, while new extensions have been added.

SVG and Other

What’s new in this browser as well is that it can support SVG filters and effects to HTML and XHTML content, and colour correction based on the ICC standard. Also included is MathML, the Animated Portable Network Graphics format (APNG), new support for microformats and native JSON.

Firefox’s DOM features have also increased, with support for the “localStorage” property, web workers, mouse gestures, geolocation and locating DOM elements using selectors. Javascript has also been upgraded to version 1.8.1, and there is now support for HTTP Requests to be made cross-site.

After a year of Firefox 3 being released; the Mozilla Corporation has launched a major update to the second-largest and open-source browser, Firefox 3.5. The new version is said to be the “best performing browser” and has added several improvements to the browser, and new features to go along with it.

Now, TECHGEEK.com.au looks at what is inside this major release.

Private Browsing & Privacy Controls

With Safari, Chrome and Internet Explorer having launched a way to browse the web without anyone knowing what you have done, Firefox has now added that functionality with “Private Browsing”. The new feature does what it says, no trace of what you browse will be recorded.

Also new is the added “Clear Recent History”, allowing you to clean the past few hours of recorded history activity, including all private data, so you can still have the rest of your history, just not the past few hours of it – because there are some things that are meant to be kept secret.

Location Based Browsing

After seeing this in action in Firefox 3.1 Beta, Firefox 3.5 has now made this as a feature in the browser, allowing you to send your geographical data to a website to find more relevant and useful information, like finding local hotels or getting directions to a particular location or landmark.

Because of this, Firefox has also made it optional, so you can reject attempts to get information based on location – meaning that you have control who knows where you are located.

Audio and Video

As you can see in the image above, that is a video being played in Firefox 3.5. But why are you showing me this? This is obviously a Flash player; and you would be right to guess that it was, but you are wrong. Dailymotion, along with Firefox, have partnered up to create a new video experiment with the new HTML5 syntax, which also includes the <video> and the <audio> tags.

In brief, the <video> and <audio> tags are to play video and audio formats, but it seems that many are opting to use the open source codecs from Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora formats.

You can see below that this is using that very same syntax to play the video, and the controls are also coded in HTML, so there is no need for Flash anywhere in the site.

Copying Chrome

One of the new features, however, is that you can now rip off the tabs into new windows and drag them back in. This sounds like Google Chrome for some reason, and it could be, because they had that feature since day one, even though they do not have a Mac or Linux version out.

However, with that, there is no sandboxing feature out yet, which is where you can have each tab and each window running as separate things, so if one tab crashes, it does not crash the entire browser – and that is one of the things that sets Chrome apart from the rest.

Mozilla, however, is said to be working on that very feature soon, so look out for it in the next major release.

Performance

One of the big things about Firefox 3.5 is that it has now improved its Javascript rendering performance, though it is beaten by Google Chrome. On a SunSpider test (on a Windows XP machine), it manages to reduce the loading time from 3,669ms in Firefox 3 to 1,524 seconds.

As well, more emphasis has been made integrating the browser’s look to the operating system, with Vista have visual enhancements to the sidebar, rounded corners for the OS X version and icons in the location bar have been aligned in the Linux version.

Overall

Overall, Firefox 3.5 is a major upgrade that hopes to close the gap between it and Google Chrome by so many in the performance area, but it has added several things to catch up with many of its rivals, like Private Browsing and HTML5 support from Safari.

However, because of Firefox’s large amount of plug-ins and its community supporting the development, Firefox remains the number one choice, in my mind, in browsers.

Next up, a look in what Firefox 3.5 has made for developers.

It looks like Twitter has given an update to the Following and Follower pages – which shows who you are following and who are following your tweets – after years of having the old static page of showing the “follow” button or just show a list of users.

Now, with this update, you can now see the list in two ways, one in more detailed, and another with just the name. As well, you now can perform actions like direct message or block them right at the page, and not have to go to the individual’s page. The follow button also exists for the follower’s page.

The detailed update allows you to see who their name is, along with their location; plus their latest tweet. This is a huge improvement, but it is also the few pages that are not AJAX-ified by Twitter, maybe because of the numerous amounts of data it has to post and get to retrieve from the database.

Overall, it’s a big improvement from Twitter, and its a better looking way to scroll down to see who is following, since there is less gaps in the padding – and this if from a developer’s view.

In a statement, The Pirate Bay wrote, “We've been working on this project for many years. It's time to invite more people into the project, in a way that is secure and safe for everybody. We need that, or the site will die. And letting TPB die is the last thing that is allowed to happen!”

“If the new owners will screw around with the site, nobody will keep using it. That's the biggest insurance one can have that the site will be run in the way that we all want to. And - you can now not only share files but shares with people. Everybody can indeed be the owner of The Pirate Bay now. That's awesome and will take the heat of us.”

The CEO of Global Gaming Factory X, Hans Pandeya, said in a statement, “As a result of the acquisitions of The Pirate Bay and Peerialism, GGF will have a strategic position in the international digital distribution market. File sharing traffic is estimated to account for more than half of today's global Internet traffic.”

“The Pirate Bay has a global brand and holds a key position with over 20 million visitors and over one billion page views per month”

The scheduled closing of transaction is said to be in August 2009, where it will see Global Gaming Factory X acquires the domain name and other related sites for SEK 60,000,000 (or US$7.8 million), with SEK 30,000,000 being in cash, and the rest to be in newly issued shares.

Peerialism, a file-sharing technology company, will also be acquired for SEK 100 million, with SEK 50 million to be in cash.

News of the acquisition has made the shares of Global Gaming Factory X skyrocket by a massive 144.44 percent to close at SEK 0.44. However, it has made many Pirate Bay users unhappy with the news, saying that this is the death of the Pirate Bay, with others saying that this is blackmail. Many are also removing their accounts of fear that the new owners are set to turn over all the logs.

New photos have showcased some of the new things that Foxtel will be bringing out soon (the date is unknown), after it asked several users to gain their opinion on several of Foxtel’s new features. This includes an updated program guide for iQ and iQ2 users, along with legal downloads of several of Foxtel’s programming in 20 selected channels.

The pictures, leaked on a Blogspot blog, also show an enhanced Foxtel Box Office navigation system, and a new pricing tier, which could see the Platinum HD package worth $135, which is apparently a 25 percent discount from the “worth” price mentioned in the images of $179.50.

What’s big is that Foxtel has also unveiled several of its new channels, other than the ones soon to be added from the Freeview platform. This will include the addition of three new Showtime-branded channels: Showtime Action, Showtime Drama and Showtime Comedy – showing movies from the 70s, 80s, 90s and now in their specific genres.

Two more movie channels, not from Movie Networks, are set to join Foxtel: Family Movie Channel (FMC) – movies that the whole family can watch, and will only show G and PG rated movies (M rated movies after 9:30PM). Starpics – all the Hollywood hits and Hollywood stars including bios and news. Both FMC and Starpics will be in the “My Movie Network Package”.

National Geographic and Discovery will both add an additional channel for the “My World” package. Nat Geo Wild will showcase the wildlife and natural history documentaries produced by them, while Discovery Turbo is dedicated for all things motored.

The “My Escape” package will also expand by two more channels, with the NBC Universal-owned 13th Street, a channel dedicated for action and suspense in mysteries, joins the other NBC Universal-owned Hallmark. Comcast is set to add its Style television channel to the line up, joining sister channel E! Entertainment Channel.

As well, the basic package is soon to expand by two new channels, with Sky News adding Sky News Local, a channel focusing on local news in key cities across Australia, joining the main Sky News channel, Sky Business Channel and A-PAC.

Lifestyle will also add another channel, complementing the main channel and Lifestyle Food. Called Lifestyle You, the channel is to feature healthy living, makeover, parenting and relationship helping programs.

The expansion also including adding several HD channels. Movie One HD, Movie Extra HD, Starpics HD, Showtme HD, Showcase HD, Showtime Action HD, FOX8 HD and W HD join the current line-up of HD channels consisting of ESPN HD, National Geographic HD, BBC HD, Discovery HD and Fox Sports HD. Fox Sports HD, however, is set to be split into three channels – meaning that the 3 standard definition Fox Sports channels will have a HD simulcast.

But when can we see the channels? Have your guess.

The employees were told in March that it would impose closures for one week during the second, third and fourth quarters of this year, and asked the staff to take the paid vacation time. This are in, according to an e-mail from Adobe, addition to the normal holiday shutdowns.

In addition, it froze salaries, trimmed bonuses and its compensation plans, and curbed its travel expenses; along with the firing of eight percent of its workforce in December of last year to rein in costs during the slump.

The sales can be attributed to customers holding off upgrading to the latest version of its Creative Suite programs, which accounts for 60 percent of its revenue – after second quarter sales fell 21 percent.

Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder and the chief executive, has returned to work on Monday after a five-month leave of absence for his medical problems, which included a liver transplant, in January of this year; according to the New York Times and Bloomberg.

“Steve is back to work,” says Apple’s spokesman Steve Dowling, “We are very glad to have him back.”

Jobs will be at work for a few days a week, and will be working at home for the rest of the time when he is not in the office. However, his return is set to reassure investors after claims that he was too sick to continue as the current CEO.

Jobs was at the office today, however, he still declines to comment on his liver transplant, or more information about the health of Steve Jobs.

Its share price fell 47 cents in the NASDAQ stock exchange at 4 pm (New York time), but its stock price have jumped up 65 percent this year, mainly attributed to Tim Cook, the Chief Operating Officer and the interim Chief Executive during Jobs’ absence.

Image from: Marcopako/Flickr (Creative Commons)

News of the death of Michael Jackson, known for being the "King of Pop", has spread across Twitter and YouTube, with thousands of expressions of sadness of fans. YouTube videos, mainly tributes, are slowly rising, while several "Trending Topics" on Twitter are mainly related to Jackson's death.

As expected, Twitter has "crashed" because of the multitude of messages coming from fans - so expect a fail whale sometime soon.

Jackson's death, reported by TMZ, was pronounced this afternoon after arriving in hospital in a deep coma, after paramedics sent to his home were not able to feel a pulse. Hospital staff attempted to revive him, but attempts failed.

Jackson was due to have a comeback tour in July, running until March of 2010. Several booked dates have already sold out, with all 50 in London sold out in a matter of hours earlier in the year.