Latest news

Apple has confirmed its large Grand Central store will open tomorrow at 10 AM.

The 23,000 square-foot megastore will be complete with Genius Bar tech support and "a few new things designed for people who move at New York speed," says ABC.

Those include: "We have all of our workshops as well as one-to-one training. We'll also have, exclusive to this store, 15-minute express workshops that are streamlined versions of all our favorite workshops."

There is also an Apple Store App which will let you use your iOS device to make purchases online and pick up the product when you get to Grand Central.

The store will have 300 employees.

Apple bought out the space that was rented by Charlie Palmer's Metrazur restaurant for $5 million, ensuring Palmer breaks his lease 8 years early.

The MTA says Apple will pay $1.1 million rent per year, a significantly higher amount than Metrazur, which was paying $263,997. Foot traffic through Grand Central is over 750,000 people per day, with commuters having an average salary above $100,000.

Months after warning users, AT&T has now begun throttling data speeds for heavy users.

If you are, according to AT&T, in the top 5 percent of all users, you are likely to see your speeds reduced into the end of the billing cycle.

The new rule affects only users with unlimited plans, as everyone else is already on a tiered plan.

Without giving an exact figure, AT&T says top 5 percent users normally consumer "12 times as much traffic as the average customer." I take that to mean over 10GB, but it is unclear what figures AT&T uses. It is estimated Apple users consumer 800MB per month.

AT&T was recently rated dead last for carriers in the annual Consumer Reports satisfaction survey.

Streaming games service OnLive has set out to disrupt the mobile industry, introducing apps for Android tablets and smartphones.

The apps will let gamers play new PC and console games on their mobile devices, with the touchscreen or with a new OnLive controller. Because it is streamed, users do not need to have huge memory cards to fit the games.

A few of the touch-enabled games are Bastion, Darksiders, Dirt 3, LEGO Batman and Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II Chaos Rising.

To use the gaming service you need Android 2.3 or higher. The list OnLive provides says these devices are compatible: Acer Iconia Tab A500, ASUS Eee Pad Transformer, HTC Evo View, HTC Flyer, HTC Jetstream, Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab, Sony Ericsson Tablet S, Toshiba Thrive, HTC EVO, HTC Nexus One, HTC Rezound 4G, HTC Sensation, HTC Sensation XL, Motorola Droid 2, Motorola Droid X2, Motorola DROID BIONIC 4G, Motorola DROID RAZR 4G, Motorola Photon 4G, Samsung Galaxy S II 4G.

Verizon has announced this morning that its 4G LTE service has been returned to normal, following a one-day technical issue.

Yesterday, customers complained of slow speeds on their devices, which could not connect to 4G and were stuck on 3G, instead.

Verizon would not give an explanation for the outage but said service is fully restored: "The company's network operations team resolved a technical issue."

The carrier's 4G service is available in 179 cities to a population of 186 million.

Here is today's list of 10 cent apps from the Android Market.

The deals went live earlier than yesterday, when they didn't go up until 4 PM.

On Tuesday, the Android Market started an excellent promotion, offering 10 days of 10 popular apps for 10 cents.

Android's promotion is in celebration of 10 billion apps being downloaded from the market.

List, available now from here or via your Android phone/tablet:

Talking Tom Cat 2
Reckless Getaway
ADW EX Launcher
Tetris
Space Physics
Can Knockdown 2
Homerun Battle 3D
Toki Tori
Kids Learn to Read
Blue Skies Donation Wallpaper

On Sunday, starting at 6 PM Central Time, HP will be selling refurbished 16GB and 32GB TouchPads on their eBay store.

The devices will sell for $99 and $149 just like they did on the firesale days of a few months ago.

Additionally, the company will be selling a $79 accessory bundle which has the wireless keyboard, charging dock and a case.

There is only a 90-day warranty on the devices and sales are final, no returns. Users can only buy 2 per eBay account.

The tablets will be available at http://stores.ebay.com/hewlettpackard.

Xbox Live terms of use update reflects changes made on Sony's PSN in September.

Microsoft has updated the Xbox Live terms of use to prevent customers from filing lawsuits against the company in the United States. The binding arbitration clause dictates that if a dispute arises and informal negotiations between both parties fail, customers are required to submit to binding arbitration.

By agreeing to the new terms of use, Xbox Live users give up the right to take Microsoft to court over the service, or to join a class action lawsuit. Disputes can be still handled in a small claims court however, if normal jurisdictional requirements are met.

Another notable change to the Xbox Live terms of use is the agreement to limit Microsoft's liability in any dispute to the cost of a single month of Xbox Live membership. For Gold users, this means you are limiting Microsoft's liability to $5, and for Silver users, you are limiting it to nothing.

"You can recover from us for all successful claims only direct damages up to a total amount equal to your Service fee for one month. You cannot recover any other damages, including consequential, special, indirect, incidental, or punitive damages and lost profits," the new terms read.

Serious vulnerability being exploited in targeted attacks.

Adobe has issued a security advisory outlining a serious vulnerability that could allow an attack to take control of an affected system. The bug affects Adobe Reader X (10.1.1) and earlier on Windows and Mac, and Adobe Reader 9.4.6 and earlier 9.x versions for Linux.

It also affects Adobe Acrobat X (10.1.1) and earlier versions for the Windows and Mac operating systems. The company confirmed that the vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild with attacks targeted against Adobe Reader 9 on Windows.

Adobe is urging users to stick to the X versions of both products, because Protected Mode in Reader X, and Protected View in Acrobat X, will prevent the exploit from executing through sandboxing techniques. Since the sandboxing works effectively against the exploit in the wild, Adobe will not address the issue until its next quarterly security updates, which are scheduled for January 10.

Adobe Reader for Android and Adobe Flash Player are not affected by this issue.

Nokia to sell Vertu luxury phone business.

Nokia's Vertu sells high-end mobile phones for those who can afford to pay thousands for their handsets. Manufactured by hand in the UK, Vertu handsets use precious metals in their design, such as gold, sapphire (used for screen) and rubies. Even the lowest price handsets would still cost about $7,000.

According to a Financial Times report, Goldman Sachs has been appointed to oversee a sell-off as Nokia continues a process or re-shaping its global business. The report estimates that Vertu's annual revenue falls somewhere between €200 million and €300 million.

Vertu handsets came with a round-the-clock concierge service, with staff available constantly by just using a button on the side of the device.

The business is far from Nokia's core business, and now with Nokia's Microsoft partnership kicking in to gear, Nokia is disposing of peripheral businesses.

Nintendo denies report that Miyamoto wants a smaller role.

Wired reported that Shigeru Miyamoto intended to retire from his current position at Nintendo and take on a smaller role. "Inside our office, I've been recently declaring, 'I'm going to retire, I'm going to retire," Wired quoted Miyamoto as saying.

"I'm not saying that I'm going to retire from game development altogether. What I mean by retiring is retiring from my current position."

The news that Miyamoto, one of the world's most influential games designers, was going to step down came as a shock, but Nintendo moved on Thursday to squash the reports, insisting that there is no truth to them.

"This is absolutely not true," said a spokeswoman for Nintendo. "There seems to have been a misunderstanding. He has said all along that he wants to train the younger generation. He has no intention of stepping down. Please do not be concerned."

Shigeru Miyamoto, 59 years old, has created some of the most popular games franchises, including Super Mario Bros and The Legend of Zelda.

Xbox Live companion app for iPhone, iPad released.

Microsoft has released the official Xbox LIVE companion app for Windows Phone devices, and for Apple's iPhone and iPad devices.

This free app will allow you to stay connected to the Xbox LIVE community when you are away from your console. Some initial features for iOS include the ability to manage your friends list (invite new friends etc.), the ability to read and edit your Xbox Live profile, change your avatar features/items with the avatar closet and view/compare your achievement progress with friends.

The Xbox LIVE companion app for Windows Phone 7, released yesterday, has more features than the iOS version, such as Xbox Companion search powered by Bing, allowing you to search the unified Xbox catalog for movies, TV shows, music, games and apps using the Windows phone. You can learn more details about the movie, TV show, music or game that is playing on your console.

Software update addresses performance and usability.

A new software update for the Nokia Lumia 800 smartphone will roll-out over the next two weeks in territories the handset has been released in, The update promises to make some changes addressing performance and usability factors.

Nokia said the update will bring charging improvements, voicemail notification improvements and improved display switching in bright light. It also promises better audio quality after updating, and a change to improve mail replying for Microsoft Exchange 2003 users.

Nokia said another update is scheduled for early 2012 to bring more improvements to the Lumia software.

This current update will be downloaded through Microsoft Zune, and will be delivered in all the initial launch countries over the course of the next two weeks.

Format based on XQD specification.

The CompactFlash Association has announced the new XQM memory card format, based on the recently adopted XQD specification. The XQD specification is based on the PCI Express specification, providing a solid base for performance scaling.

"The XQD format will enable further evolution of hardware and imaging applications, and widen the memory card options available to CompactFlash users such as professional photographers," said Mr. Shigeto Kanda of Canon, chairman of the board, CFA.

The form factor specifications dictate dimensions of 38.5 x 29.8 x 3.8mm. The target for actual write speeds currently is set at 125MB/s.

The CompactFlash Association will show off some XQD memory cards at the CP+ 2012 convention, set for February in Yokohama, Japan.

The industry's first monolithic 128Gb part can store 1 terabit of data in a single fingertip-size package with just eight die.

Intel Corporation and Micron Technology, Inc. have announced the world's first 20 nanometer (nm), 128 gigabit (Gb) multilevel-cell (MLC) device. The 20nm monolithic 128Gb device is the first in the industry to enable a terabit (Tb) of data storage in a fingertip-size package by using just eight die.

It also provides twice the storage capacity and performance of the companies' existing 20nm 64Gb NAND device, which Intel and Micron also announced mass production of. The 128Gb device meets the high-speed ONFI 3.0 specification to achieve speeds of 333 megatransfers per second (MT/s).

"As portable devices get smaller and sleeker, and server demands increase, our customers look to Micron for innovative new storage technologies and system solutions that meet these challenges," said Glen Hawk, vice president of Micron's NAND Solutions Group.

"Our collaboration with Intel continues to deliver leading NAND technologies and expertise that are critical to building those systems."

Samsung breaks record for TV sales in November.

The South Korean consumer electronics firm said that sales of its televisions reached 5.7 million units during the month of November. It praised the long thanksgiving weekend in the United States for a large part of the record total.

On Black Friday, Samsung got its share of the additional $7.4 billion Americans spent compared to the 2010 total. The company sold 700,000 more units than in the month of October, or about 14 percent more. Samsung now feels that it is on track for its sales target of 45 million flat-screen TV units for the 2011.

Samsung's success comes as others in the TV business are struggling. Sony Corp warned last month of a fourth straight year of losses, with its TV unit responsible for losing $2.2 billion. Phillips Electronics has had to transfer its TV business to a joint venture setup with TPV Tecnology Ltd., based in Hong Kong.

Samsung's TV division reported a 240 billion won ($213 million) operating profit for the third quarter of this year.