HONG KONG – Apple’s CEO Timothy D. Cook announced lower iPhone prices during a visit to a plant in China today.

The announcement came as Cook toured a Foxconn Technology facility in the city of Zhengzhou, in the province of Henan. Apple had recently come under fire for poor work conditions at its Chinese manufacturers.

“We’re turning this misconception of lousy work conditions around. We’re lowering prices on the iPhone. We know that’s what people care about,” Cook explained.

According to the Apple web site, the iPhone 4S will start at $159. The iPhone 4 will start at $59. AT&T carriers can get the 3G for free.

When asked about work conditions at the Foxconn plant, Cook refuted the claims. “These people have good jobs, especially for this part of China. The Foxconn facility is clean. They serve decent meals and workers can even shower if they wish. As I mentioned earlier, we’re lowering prices on iPhones without lowering wages.”

The world’s smallest puppy fits  can fit comfortably on an iPhone.

Beyoncé, named the world’s smallest puppy, can easily fit into the palm of your hand. The pint-sized pup weighs just four ounces.  Beyoncé – named for the singer, who has a tune called “Survivor” – the micro-canine has escaped death four times — three times before she was even born.

Beyoncé is one of five Dachsund and Chihuahua puppies born to mom Casey, who was found pregnant and abandoned.

After Casey was picked up by animal control, she was set to be euthanized – until she was taken in by The Grace Foundation, which cares for abused and neglected animals.

When Beyoncé was born on March 8, she was abnormally small, had no heartbeat and wasn’t breathing. A veterinarian on the scene was able to get her heart started, and Beth DeCaprion, founder of The Grace Foundation, gave the tiny puppy mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Since then, the pup has been bottle-fed every hour and, according to the foundation, is “normal in every other way.” Beyoncé is expected to only grow to about 1 ½ pounds.

The foundation is now applying to the Guinness Book of World Records to see if Beyoncé could nab the world’s smallest puppy title.

As for the pup’s name, DeCaprion said it best: “We wanted to give her a very strong person to aspire to be.”

Amy Sinatra Ayres, Vetstreet.com

An iPad was dropped to Earth from space in a super-tough $6 case — and survived.
More than 2.3million people have watched the amazing footage showing the Apple tablet free-falling from more than 100,000ft.

It was created by US firm G-Shock to show off the strength of their super protective cases, which are made with a military grade ballistic fabric.

The 2min 20sec clip shows the device attached to a high-altitude weather balloon before plummeting back to the ground with a thump when the balloon burst.

Techies recovered the device on a rocky hillside in the Nevada desert.

App-solutely amazing...

BREAKING NEWS  Google has selected Weekly World News for the launch of the new Google Currents social reading platform for iPhones, Android Phones, Android tablets and iPads.

Weekly World News can be found in the Currents Entertainment section along with other leading online entertainment brands such as TMZ, PBS and Gawker.

Go to – GOOGLE CURRENTS - now to install Currents and add Weekly World News so you can enjoy the World’s Only Reliable News wherever you go.

Congratulations to he Google Currents production team:

The Currents launch features “a select group of publishing partners to offer,” according to the Google Mobile Blog post announcing Currents. Readers can also set up their RSS, video, and image feeds; stream in content shared on Google+; or view their Google Reader subscriptions through the platform.

DOWLOAD THE GOOGLE CURRENTS APP FOR FREE AND “ADD” WEEKLY WORLD NEWS TO GET  YOUR DAILY DOSE OF BAT BOY ON iPADS, iPHONES, ANDROID DEVICES AND ALL TABLETS.

Go to GOOGLE CURRENTS FOR INFORMATION ABOUT DOWNLOADING.

Check out this introductory video:

RIP. Steve Jobs.  1955-2011.

In 2005 Steve Jobs delivered the commencement address to graduating students at Stanford University. Here is the video of his speech.

PALO ALTO, CA -  It was revealed today that iPhones keep track of everywhere a user goes… and saves the information in a database!

Privacy fears raised as researchers reveal file on iPhone that stores location coordinates and timestamps of owner’s movements

Security researchers have discovered that Apple’s iPhone keeps track of where you go – and saves every detail of it to a secret file on the device which is then copied to the owner’s computer when the two are synchronized.

The file contains the latitude and longitude of the phone’s recorded coordinates along with a time stamp, meaning that anyone who stole the phone or the computer could discover details about the owner’s movements using a simple program.

For some phones, there could be almost a year’s worth of data stored, as the recording of data seems to have started with Apple’s iOS 4 update to the phone’s operating system, released in June 2010.

“Apple has made it possible for almost anybody – a jealous spouse, a private detective – with access to your phone or computer to get detailed information about where you’ve been,” said Pete Warden, one of the researchers.

Only the iPhone records the user’s location in this way, say Warden and Alasdair Allan, the data scientists who discovered the file and are presenting their findings at the Where 2.0 conference in San Francisco on Wednesday. “Alasdair has looked for similar tracking code in [Google's] Android phones and couldn’t find any,” said Warden. “We haven’t come across any instances of other phone manufacturers doing this.”

Simon Davies, director of the pressure group Privacy International, said: “This is a worrying discovery. Location is one of the most sensitive elements in anyone’s life – just think where people go in the evening. The existence of that data creates a real threat to privacy. The absence of notice to users or any control option can only stem from an ignorance about privacy at the design stage.”

Warden and Allan point out that the file is moved onto new devices when an old one is replaced: “Apple might have new features in mind that require a history of your location, but that’s our speculation. The fact that [the file] is transferred across [to a new iPhone or iPad] when you migrate is evidence that the data-gathering isn’t accidental.” But they said it does not seem to be transmitted to Apple itself.

Although mobile networks already record phones’ locations, it is only available to the police and other recognized organizsations following a court order under the Regulation of Investigatory Power Act. Standard phones do not record location data.

The iPhone system, by contrast, appears to record the data whether or not the user agrees. Apple declined to comment on why the file is created or whether it can be disabled.

Warden and Allan have set up a web page which answers questions about the file, and created a simple downloadable application to let Apple users check for themselves what location data the phone is retaining. The Guardian has confirmed that 3G-enabled devices including the iPad also retain the data and copy it to the owner’s computer.

If someone were to steal an iPhone and “jailbreak” it, giving them direct access to the files it contains, they could extract the location database directly. Alternatively, anyone with direct access to a user’s computer could run the application and see a visualization of their movements. Encrypting data on the computer is one way to protect against it, though that still leaves the file on the phone.

Apple can legitimately claim that it has permission to collect the data: near the end of the 15,200-word terms and conditions for its iTunes program, used to synchronise with iPhones, iPods and iPads, is an 86-word paragraph about “location-based services”.

It says that “Apple and our partners and licensees may collect, use, and share precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device. This location data is collected anonymously in a form that does not personally identify you and is used by Apple and our partners and licensees to provide and improve location-based products and services. For example, we may share geographic location with application providers when you opt in to their location services.”

ARLINGTON, VA – Physiologist finds that a popular mobile phone game cures chronic constipation.

Dr. Reinhardt Burchfield, renowned physiologist specializing in technology based therapy, discovered what could be a revolutionary daily therapy that can subconsciously alter how the body and mind deal with chronic issues.  Burchfield’s discovery took place where most great ideas emerge, the bathroom.

Burchfield had been a long time sufferer of colonic dysmotility more commonly known as chronic constipation until he made this recent life changing breakthrough.  He discovered one afternoon that playing the popular iPhone and Android mobile game Unblock Me while going number 2 literally did just that. It unblocked him.

“My wife would always harass me for taking forever during my routine 3 o’clock bathroom break. Then one day I decided to play this game Unblock Me and it was like my world bottomed out. I was in and out in five minutes compared to the usual twenty,” explained Burchfield.

Since making this discovery, Burchfield has enlisted several other sufferers of the biological backup to determine if the game could help them as well. He reports that so far the results are promising.

Burchfield offered this explanation as to how the simple act of playing a game could stimulate the digestive system:  “More often than we realize, the mind will take a literal statement and translate or actualize it into a physiological manifestation.”

Since the discovery, Burchfield has flushed his 401k, IRA, and entire stock portfolio to invest all of it into research to determine if other popular apps could help other conditions.

Based on the principles of his recent breakthrough and the game name alone, Burchfield strongly feels that there could be a connection between playing the enormously popular mobile phone game Angry Birds with those who suffer from anger management issues.  However, many of his colleagues who have actually played the game feel that it will most likely make things worse.

WASHINGTON – Steve Jobs teams up with Senator John McCain to deal with iPhone-addicted Americans.

In the wake of last week’s nomination of WikiLeaks–the embattled champion of transparency in government and the free flow of information–for a Nobel Peace Prize, a number of enlightening high-level communications between Apple’s Steve Jobs and senior United States Senator John McCain have been released.

In the emails, which were exchanged just after Meghan McCain’s ‘Pajama-Gate’ played out on Twitter in the fall of 2009, Jobs and the Senator discuss the ‘planned obsolescence of our nation’s phone-addicted population.’

The plan–code name ‘iBlow’–is already in process and involves the insertion of a tiny, neurologically-calibrated entabulator chip into all iPhones, iTouches and music-playing iPhone clones, regardless of carrier. This chip will be triggered via satellite link from a remote location by Steve Jobs on Friday, February 14th,, 2011.

The ensuing electric charge will freeze the neural activity of anyone plugged into an audio stream, phone call or podcast via ear buds at the moment of activation.

Wrote McCain to Jobs in one of their many exchanges, ‘I tell you, Steve, I’m just tired of seeing all these kids walking around, plugged into these ridiculous mobile music devices, totally f*cking oblivious…These hipster doofuses couldn’t handle six days of torture, let alone six years!!’ McCain went on to indict Steve Jobs, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Starbucks for creating the maelstrom of technological gadgetry that, he says, has led to the decline and fall of the American intellect.

What is most surprising about the leaked communiqués is that Jobs himself seems to agree with McCain.

‘I hear you, man. I remember writing code on an MSDOS machine when I was still in training pants. Kids out of college nowadays can’t even spell ‘code’ without spellcheck.’

Jobs’ leave of absence from the helm of Apple also appears not to be due not to ill health, as has been generally reported, but was a critical step in the execution Operation iBlow. The emails indicate that Jobs will use the next week to move essential personal data from his iPhone onto his PC.

The clean-up phase of iBlow includes the collection and disposal of the neurally frozen citizens by sanitation workers around the country, who will then use the recycled organic material as fertilizer in the aerial reforestation of the National Parks.

Giles Jarmunk, current Director of the National Park Service, approves of the idea. ‘I really think we will be able to reverse the whole greenhouse effect here. We’ll be tending to our national forests and reducing, reusing and recycling a giant chunk of useless people. It’s genius, really.’

WASHINGTON – President Obama rallies America in his State of the Union Address.

President Obama gave a riveting State of the Union address this evening.  Much of the President’s focus was on the economy and job creation. He referenced many hard working Americans and created a pep rally of sorts in an attempt to energize the American people.

With the American economy growing at a sluggish rate and job development still less than anticipated, the President asked Congress and the American people to consider how they can “win the future”, referencing America’s originality and innovation throughout history.

Some Republican Senators took this the wrong way and immediately took out their Blackberries and iPhones and began making wagers at Poker.com.  While others tried to outsource their wager making to the interns in the back of the room, completely missing the mark on the President’s reference.

Continuing on the topic of the economy, the President referenced a need to reduce the deficit. He proposed a five-year freeze in discretionary spending and tens of billions of dollars in defense cuts. However, he promised that Social Security would be left alone until somebody could come up with a better solution.

It was noticed by several attendees and members of Congress that during the speech Timothy Geithner made a quick note to himself writing “buy Casio calculator watches for all of Treasury department… no reason for anyone to have discrepancies…yes!”

President Obama also spoke to the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, insuring the American public that “no American will be forbidden from serving the country they love because of who they love”. This incited a rousing standing ovation from virtually everyone with the exception of three generals seated promptly in the front row, none of which stood nor clapped in response to the President’s remarks.

When the generals were asked after the speech why they chose not to stand or clap, the generals cited “old war injuries and bad knees”. As the generals were hurried off by their aides to avoid further questioning, the words “Fruit Loops” were heard from afar.

In Republican Senator Paul Ryan’s response to the speech he referenced the speedy recovery of Senator Giffords, the crushing debt that the country is enduring and that the next generation will inherit a stagnate economy but did not make any reference to online gambling, Casio calculator watches or Fruit Loops.

NEW YORK –  Android platform phones, or Droids, are  helping kids cheat in school.

Smart phones are all the rage and Android platform phones, often referred to as Droids, are gaining traction in the Apple dominated market. Apple’s iPhone App Store has over 100,000 apps to choose from but this figure pails in comparison to the 200,000+ apps that can be downloaded from the Android Market.

The Android Market offers a wide variety of games with popular titles such as Angry Birds, Jewels and Slice it! In addition to games, the market also offers applications to make your life a little bit easier such as email clients apps, Pandora , and social network based apps like Facebook for Android. However, one app in particular made life a little too easy for some children and created great concern for many educators.

The app “Give Me Your Answer” is one of the first apps of its kind to be offered with an ear piece. The concept behind this Russian designed app is that the user inserts the earpiece into the ear canal like one would do with a hearing aid. The user then simply asks a question out loud. The app incorporates Google’s Voice Search tool, which comes pre-installed on all Droids, and searches the internet for the answer. It then relays the answer quietly into the ear of the user. The concern for educators here was that students were using the app to aid them with their exams.

“After the holiday break, we were noticing several kids coming into class with hearing aids and found it to be quite strange. What was even odder was that they were all continually mumbling to themselves. But when our F students became A students overnight, we new something was up,” said Vice Principle Dilmer of PS 312.

Upon learning about the app, Google announced that it would remove the app from its Android Market.

“We very rarely will remove apps from the Market,” said Google CEO Eric Schmidt, “but this is app is just plain wrong. We at Google believe that the children are our future. We have to teach them well and let them lead the way. We have to help to show them all the beauty, I mean intelligence, that they possess inside. We have to give them a sense of pride and make things easier, but not easier this way.”