News Briefs

Apple unveils ‘iPhone’

On Tuesday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced their latest and most heavily anticipated product, the iPhone. The phone features many unique ideas including a large touch screen for dialing phone numbers as well as surfing the Internet. The phone also features a hard drive for listening to music and a 2-megapixel digital camera. When the phone was unveiled, Apple’s stock prices rose over $7.00 while other mobile wireless device manufacturers saw their prices drop. The phone is set to go on sale in June 2007 and retail for $499-$599 (the price includes a 2-year contract with Cingular Wireless). Apple hopes to sell over 10 million phones in 2008.



$100 laptop to go on sale in 2008

The people behind the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative plan to put their $100 laptop on sale to the general public in 2008. The only catch is that the laptop will cost $200. The extra money generated will be used to send a laptop to poor children outside of the United States. Countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Libya have already signed up for the laptop program. The OLPC initiative is in talks with eBay on how to distribute the laptops cheaply to minimize the overall cost to consumers. The laptops currently feature video and instant messaging capabilities to enable children to communicate with each other. They also are focused solely on working in an educational environment. OLPC plans on distributing their laptops to as many children as possible in areas with Internet access.



NSA helped Microsoft secure Vista

According to a story published Tuesday, it was revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) helped Microsoft develop its next-generation operation system so that it would conform to the U.S. Department of Defense requirements. The NSA has helped Microsoft in the past with its Windows XP and Windows 2000 operating systems. The intention of the agency was to create a program that was compatible with government software as soon as it was released rather than trying to make it compatible later. The involvement of the NSA is raising some red flags for some people. There are thoughts that the agency might be interested in creating back-door access points built right into the operating system although NSA spokesman, Ken White, says otherwise.