Apple in talks with Hulu for acquisition

Apple Inc. is considering the acquisition of popular U.S. video portal Hulu, reports Bloomberg referring to anonymous sources.

Security holes in Apple MacBooks :Vulnerable To Battery Firmware Hacks

Charlie Miller, Apple security expert with the consulting firm Accuvant, found a new way to hack into Apple's MacBook computers -- with the battery.

If exploited, Miller’s newly discovered hack could force battery overheating, or render it inoperable, transforming the computer into an expensive paperweight.

Google accquired Fridge to build groups in Google+

Group social-networking site Fridge yesterday posted in its blog that it is closing up shop and joining Google.

New York-based Fridge, which offered a simple and pretty group communication tool with photo-sharing and event-planning features, had raised some curiosity when it told members last week via email that it was shutting down its product.

First Day :Apple reported 1M OS X downloads.

Apple in its press info announced that it had 1 million downloads of its newest operating system, Lion.

Thanks the the ease of downloading it through the App Store, this was the biggest OS launch in Apple's history.

This is what the Press info says :

Microsoft record revenue as its Xbox sales got up .

if it is iphone and ipad for apple and android for google then it is Xbox for Microsoft .

 

As Google, Apple and IBM all reported strong earnings recently. Microsoft also made record earnings.

Installing OS X 10.7 Lion

The optical disk is dead. Or at least it is for Apple fans. The company had been dropping DVD drives from its latest hardware and its new operating system, OS X 10.7 Lion, is now available in digital form only, via the Mac App Store . 

On one hand that's great — upgrading is just a matter of clicking a button and you're done, everything is handled seamlessly behind the scenes. 

However, the App Store method means you'll have to be running Snow Leopard (which is the only other OS that supports the App Store), and you'll have to download a nearly 4GB file, which can take quite a while if you haven't got a fast internet connection. 

The other problem is that the App Store install doesn't offer the opportunity to do a "clean" install — that is, wipe away your old system and install a fresh copy of Lion. To do a clean install Apple would have you wait until August, when the company will be begin shipping Lion on USB sticks for a whopping $70, more the double the $30 App Store price. 

However, despite what Apple says, there are in fact other ways to install Lion. Here's our guide to the various ways of installing Apple's newest OS on your Mac without waiting until August or paying double for the USB stick.

Downloading Lion

The simplest way to install Lion is to download it from the Mac App Store and then run the installer. If your connection is too slow to make a 4 GB download practical, head to your nearest Apple Store which will allow you to download a copy via their speedy wifi connection. It'll still take a while, but at least you can play with fancy new Macs while you wait. 

 

Don't have fast broadband or live near a Mac store? Make friends with someone who has the broadband you need, or be patient and wait several days for Lion to download. Alternately you can wait until August and pay a premium for a USB copy.

Build your own install disk

Just because Apple wants everything to be digital doesn't mean you have to oblige them. In fact it's dead simple to create your own DVD or USB Lion installer. When Lion installs it will create a hidden recovery partition on your harddrive. Should anything ever go wrong with your installation you can always hold down the option key at start up and boot from the emergency partition to re-install Lion.

Given the new hidden disk failsafe, why bother creating an installation disk? Well, you'll need it if you want to do a clean install and it's not a bad thing to have around. If your hard drive fails the hidden partition will fail with it and you'll be stuck downloading Lion again. 

Fortunately creating an install disk from the Lion installer is pretty easy. First head to your Applications folder, where you'll see the freshly downloaded Lion installer app. Right-click on the app and select "Show Package Contents." That will open the installer bundle in a new window where you'll see a folder called "SharedSupport." Inside "SharedSupport" there's a disk image called "InstallESD.dmg." The "ESD" bit stands for "Emergency Startup Disk," which is what we'll use to create a new Lion install disk, so copy "InstallESD.dmg" somewhere else.

Now insert your disk — a DVD, a USB stick or an external hard drive will all work — and launch Disk Utility . Select the drive you're using and then click the "Restore" tab. Make sure your backup drive is set as the "Destination," and then just drag and drop the "InstallESD.dmg" into the "Source" box. Click "Restore" and wait for Disk Utility to work it's magic. Once it's done, eject your disk and you're finished. Use that disk as you would any other installation disk.

Over-the-air "clean" install

If something goes catastrophically wrong with your Mac, Apple has a new hidden option in Lion that will allow you to wipe your drive and do a clean install via the internet. That's great for recovery purposes, should something go wrong with your install. 

To get to the new options, just start up your Mac holding down command-R and you'll be greeted by a menu that will allow you to restore your system to any point in time from a Time Machine backup, run Disk Utility to check, repair or partition disks and connect to Apple via Safari. That's the hidden recovery partition kicking in.

Lion's so-called Internet Recovery mode lets you start your Mac directly from Apple's Servers, as per Apple's tech note:

Note: If your Mac problem is a little less common — your hard drive has failed or you've installed a hard drive without OS X, for example — Internet Recovery takes over automatically. It downloads and starts Lion Recovery directly from Apple servers over a broadband Internet connection. And your Mac has access to the same Lion Recovery features online. Internet Recovery is built into every newly-released Mac starting with the Mac mini and MacBook Air.

Conclusion

As with in OS upgrade be sure to make complete bootable backups (and test them!) before you begin installing OS X Lion.

Gmail Calling Now Supports Multiple Calls and Call Waiting features

If you are a regular user used to making call via Google Voice in Gmail but craved additional features, today is your lucky day. Gmail calling now supports multiple calls, call waiting, and hold. 

Now when you’re talking to someone you can put them on hold, accept an incoming call, and switch between the two calls just as you can with a real phone line that has call waiting enabled. Even if you don’t intend to pick up a second line you can still place a current caller on hold to effectively mute the conversation temporarily. Hit up the link below to read more about the new features at the official Gmail blog.

Google to Shut Down Google Labs :GoolgeBlog

Yesterday Google in its official blog posted that it is going to wind down its Labs service..


Last week we explained that we’re prioritizing our product efforts. As part of that process, we’ve decided to wind down Google Labs. While we’ve learned a huge amount by launching very early prototypes in Labs, we believe that greater focus is crucial if we’re to make the most of the extraordinary opportunities ahead.

In many cases, this will mean ending Labs experiments—in others we’ll incorporate Labs products and technologies into different product areas. And many of the Labs products that are Android apps today will continue to be available on Android Market. We’ll update you on our progress via the Google Labs website.

During the company's most recent earnings conference call, co-founder Larry Page, who took over as CEO in April, said that the company was in the midst of trimming its broad palette of products and services, eliminating those that haven't proven popular and successful, like Google Health and Google PowerMeter, shut down in late June.

The closing of Google Labs doesn't affect the company's policy to encourage employees to devote 20 percent of their work time to projects of their own invention, the spokesman said.

Im frustrated that Google isnt giving us a lot of information about what features well lose and when. If I knew what was going away, and when, I could start researching for alternatives. Or maybe a kindly startup could volunteer to take the feature out of Googles hands and support it. What do yall think? What Labs features will you miss?