iPad 5 Production

We may see a brand new iPad in just a few months.

DigiTimes reports that production for the next-generation tablet will begin between July and August of this year. In addition to the production timeline, the site claims sources within the Taiwan-based supply chain for the tablet have indicated that the iPad 5 will be both thinner and lighter than its predecessor and will have a slimmer bezel, similar to that found on the iPad mini.

Purported images of the iPad 5 appeared on the web in January of this year. Those images showed a 9.7-inch iPad with an almost identical look to the iPad mini. The device had little to no right or left bezels, with the only area around the screen being that require for the camera and home button.

At the time, the iPad 5 was reported to be released in October on this year, a timeline that seems to fall in line with a July or August manufacturing schedule.

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Cher Is Dead ?

No, Cher fans, the singer and actress did not die. The Twitter hashtag "#nowthatchersdead" is meant to be read as "now Thatcher's dead" — not "now that Cher's dead."

Margaret Thatcher, the United Kingdom's former prime minister, died Monday at age 87 following a stroke. Website Is Thatcher Dead Yet? quickly reacted, encouraging people to reveal how they're celebrating the death via tweets with hashtag #nowthatchersdead.

The hashtag sparked confusion and humor about Cher, the 66-year-old who has amassed 1.4 million Twitter followers with her quirky and sometimes non-sensical tweets.

Other than promoting #nowthatchersdead, the Is Thatcher Dead Yet? site is prompting people to join Facebook parties related to Thatcher's death and listen to a Spotify playlist titled "Until Thatcher's Dead."

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iOS 7 Concept

It has barely been six months since Apple released iOS 6, but that doesn't mean we can't start dreaming about what's to come in iOS 7.

A new concept video for iOS 7 will have you dreaming of all the possibilities for Apple's next operating system for iPhone and iPad. Federico Bianco, who created the video, demonstrates how Apple could add a dream list of new features into the existing OS without drastically overhauling its look and feel.

Bianco re-imagines the functionality for everything from the lock screen and settings options to the iBooks shelf and Mission Control. In the concept video, users can customize the lock screen so they can tap to make a call without swiping to unlock. You can also swipe across the top of the lock screen to turn on Wi-Fi or Airplane mode.

There are options to quickly reply to text messages, browse through all the app windows you have open and even close all open apps with one tap — an option that would no doubt save you time and battery life. Each of these features is designed to reduce whatever friction still remains in using Apple's mobile devices.

Apple traditionally unveils the latest mobile OS at its Worldwide Developers Conference each summer, though noted Apple blogger John Gruber recently said he's heard rumors that iOS 7 development is behind schedule and Apple is pulling engineers from other departments to work on it.

How do you like Bianco's ideas for iOS 7? What features and functions would you add?

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Facebook Home

Facebook announced Thursday its big mobile plans for Android: Facebook Home. Although it will initially be available only on a few models, Facebook Home represents how Facebook wants to exist on Android phones.

If you're confused by Facebook Home or just want to get a better understanding of everything the new interface entails, we've got you covered.


At the Facebook Home event, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg consistently referred to Home as "putting people first instead of apps."

To that end, Facebook Home isn't a new OS and it isn't a fork of Android, instead it is a new home screen and app launcher interface for Android that gives your Facebook notifications, news feed posts and messages more integration with the overall phone experience.

Facebook put together an ad showing off Facebook Home that shows the company's vision for how the product will fit with your mobile life.

While Facebook Home isn't an Android replacement, it does make some changes to the default Android look and feel.


When you turn on a phone running Facebook Home, the lock screen and the home screen default to something called Cover feed. Cover feed is a stream from your News Feed, putting the focus on what your friends are currently sharing — including photos, status updates and links.

You can flip through stories on the screen and double tap a story to like it. The idea behind Cover feed is to help surface the important updates from the people in your life — updates that might otherwise have missed.

Facebook will push notifications across Facebook Home too. These include updates from Facebook and other apps on your home screen. You can choose to move notifications away until you want to access them later or you can flick them away from view.


On the HTC First, all notifications for apps on your home screen will come through Facebook Home. For users that download Home for their existing Android device, only Facebook notifications will show up.

We're not sure how standard notifications will be handled within Home on devices such as the Galaxy S III and HTC One X — but we assume the drop-down notifications drawer will continue to exist within other apps.

One of the big features Facebook is touting is the new messaging component dubbed chat heads. Chat heads are persistent messages — all avatar based — that can appear on top of other apps.


This means if you get a text message while reading an article on the web, you can respond to that message in a pop-up, without having to navigate to the messages app. Plus, icons for chats can be moved around the screen for fast access to conversations that are ongoing.

Chat heads works with both SMS and Facebook Messenger messages.

While Facebook wants to focus less on other apps and more about making Facebook the center of your phone, Facebook Home will still have an app launcher.


Swiping up on your Facebook profile photo will open up the app launcher. In addition to having a full drawer of all your apps, you can also customize your favorite apps into their own areas and pages.

AT&T and HTC have put together some videos showing off how to use the new features of Facebook Home.

Facebook Home will be available on April 12 via download from Google Play. Out of the gate, Facebook Home will work on the HTC One, the HTC One X, the Samsung Galaxy S III, the Samsung Galaxy Note II and the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S4.


While Facebook Home won't feature ads — for now — it's inevitable that Sponsored Stories will find their way into cover feed.

Still, for users that fear Facebook Home will provide lots of data to Facebook about what you are doing and where you are, the company says it will not actively track a user's GPS location.

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Facebook Phone - What to expect ?

Facebook is holding an event at its Menlo Park headquarters Thursday to show the world its “new home on Android.”

No one is certain what exactly Facebook’s “new home” will be, but we’ve got a few a few solid hints.

Although Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has always indicated — as recently as a few months ago — that a phone has “always been the wrong strategy” for Facebook, it looks like a phone may be just what we'll see the company announce on Thursday.

That "Facebook Phone" announcement, however, may not be what you think.


If the rumors are true, then Facebook will be announcing a phone called Facebook First, made by HTC.

HTC makes good hardware, which bodes well for an HTC Facebook Phone. That said, if you’re expecting top-of-the-line features like those found in company’s flagship handset, the HTC One, or fun software tricks like Samsung’s Galaxy S 4 –- you’re going to be disappointed.

Current rumors point the Facebook phone being a midrange smartphone with a 4.3-inch 720p display, 1GB of RAM, a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor and a 5-megapixel camera.

Alleged pictures of the phone posted on the Twitter account @evleaks appear to confirm that rumor, and show a handset with three physical buttons at the bottom of the screen.


If the phone is priced to match other midrange phones, that would make it considerably more affordable — if not free — for Facebook enthusiasts who want to buy one. An FCC filing also suggests that the phone will run on AT&T.


Software is really what will make the “Facebook Phone.” Rumors point to Facebook showing off an Android launcher that will boot your phone up to Facebook, and offer easy access to Facebook features throughout the operating system.

Photos of what may be the Facebook phone’s operating system surfaced Wednesday on 9to5Google. Those images show your Facebook profile picture replacing the lock button on the device, with an ever-changing news feed update at the top of the screen, keeping you up to date on what your friends are up to.

A check-in, photo, and status message button are present throughout the applications menu at the top of the screen, providing quick access to updating Facebook, no matter what you might be doing at the time.


While Facebook’s OS might debut on a specific HTC device, don’t expect that phone to be the only place you can get the “Facebook Phone” experience.

During that same interview where Zuckerberg said a Facebook phone was the wrong strategy for the company he also said "We want to build a system which is, as deeply as possible, integrated into every major device people want to use," so if the company does release phone, you can bet it doesn't want those features limited to just a single piece of hardware.

The company will likely make much of the same functionality available for other Android smartphone as well, downloadable and installable from Google Play.

What do you think Facebook will announce Thursday? Let us know your thoughts in the comments, and be sure to come back for our liveblog here at 10 a.m. PDT/1 p.m. EDT to catch all the action as it happens.

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Malaysia General Election

The Malaysian prime minister, Najib Razak, announced he would dissolve Parliament on Wednesday, launching a critical election campaign for his multiethnic coalition that has been in power since independence from Britain more than five decades ago.


After years of what amounted to one-party rule in Malaysia, the country’s opposition parties have been ascendant, challenging a system that is based on ethnicity. Chinese voters, who make up about one quarter of the country’s population of nearly 30 million, have abandoned the ruling coalition in large numbers. And the country’s main Malay ethnic group, which has dominated politics in the country for five decades, is divided.

Mr. Najib, who addressed the country on national television, sounded at times defensive in his remarks.

“Don’t gamble the future of your children and Malaysia,” he said, according to the Reuters news agency. “Think and contemplate because your vote will determine not only the future of the country but also your grandchildren.”

The elections will be the first electoral test for Mr. Najib who took office in 2009 from Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the former prime minister who led the coalition during the last elections in 2008.

Mr. Najib has made several changes to what was a mildly authoritarian system. He announced the repeal of laws that allow for detention without trial and barred students from politics.

But daily newspapers and television channels, many of which have links to the country’s ruling parties, still have a paternalistic tone and have been criticized by the opposition for being cheerleaders for the government’s policies.

The front page of Wednesday’s New Straits Times, a leading English daily, had an article about the elections with a picture of Mr. Najib waving his index finger next to the headline, “Choose wisely.”

The opposition, led by Anwar Ibrahim, a former deputy prime minister, made major gains in the 2008 elections, winning control of a number of states and stripping the ruling coalition of the two-thirds supermajority majority in Parliament that allowed it to amend the constitution.

The exact timing of the election, which must be held within two months of the dissolution of Parliament, will not be known until the country’s Election Commission makes an announcement, possibly next week. Malaysian media have reported that they are likely to be held later this month. Elections for state legislatures will take place simultaneously with the elections for the federal Parliament.

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iPhone Crash Issues

iOS hacks are nothing new, but there are ways to crash the system without complicated exploits or intimate programming knowledge. By taking advantage of weaknesses in Apple's endemic iMessage system, some lads of ill repute have discovered a way to spam users until their phones lock up. iMessage is a text messaging service for users of Macs, iPhones and iPads, although this behavior only poses a threat to iOS devices.

Information comes by way of a number of software experts active in the iOS development and hacking scenes. Griefers (online users who act within the rules to harass others) can develop a simple script to flood an iMessage inbox with a constant stream of nonsense messages.

Usually, this behavior just creates an incredible nuisance, since it clogs a user's device with nonstop notifications and resulting noises. However, even iMessage has limits. Some messages include unusual characters (such as complicated emoticons) that require a special kind of text rendering.

Spamming messages with these characters can cause a device to lock up from apoplectic processing. Even restarting the device may not help right away, since the messages will continue to come at a fast and furious pace, and the device must still render whatever came while the device was turned off. Even if the device does not freeze, receiving a massive amount of spam messages can be a colossal waste of valuable data plan money.

"What’s happening is a simple flood," Grant Paul, an iOS developer, told TNW. "Apple doesn’t seem to limit how fast messages can be sent, so the attacker is able to send thousands of messages very quickly."


Since the attack cannot permanently damage systems or steal any information, everyday users are unlikely to find themselves on the receiving end of unprovoked attacks. However, if you maintain a public profile or have recently angered someone, your tormentor may find that this is an easy way to pester you with little programming skill and almost no stakes.

Apple may address this problem and add some kind of anti-spam protections into iMessage, but until then, the most practical solution is to turn the program off altogether if you've been affected. If not, you probably don't have much to worry about, but keep an eye on who has your iMessage contact information.

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