MacRumors

In a video that demonstrates the attack, the researchers first jailbreak the phone using existing software tools. They then install an SSH server on the iPhone that allows software to be run on the phone.

The third step is to copy a keychain access script to the phone. The script uses system functions already in the phone to access the keychain entries and, as a final step, outputs the account details it discovers to the attacker.

The attack works because the cryptographic key on current iOS devices is based on material available within the device and is independent of the passcode, the researchers said. This means attackers with access to the phone can create the key from the phone in their possession without having to hack the encrypted and secret passcode.

According to the report, the researchers were able to obtain passwords for Gmail accounts, Microsoft Exchange accounts, voicemail access, VPN and Wi-Fi network passwords, as well as passwords for some applications.

The researchers note that gaining access to an email password makes it easy for hackers to then reset passwords for other types of accounts, while compromised passwords for corporate networks can obviously result in security issues for businesses.

The exploit obviously requires a fair amount of technical knowledge, and thus shouldn't be an issue for the vast majority of users whose devices become lost or stolen. But the exploit could be used in targeted attacks by those specifically seeking to gain access to sensitive systems.

Last night, we noted that lines were beginning to form for the Verizon iPhone, which went on sale this morning at Apple and Verizon retail stores, as well as Best Buy and select Wal-Mart stores. But in the light of morning, lines are short in many locations, particularly at Apple stores.

Apple's flagship Fifth Avenue store in Manhattan (Source: CNET)

New York 6:50 a.m. ET: It's 18 degrees here in New York City, and there are now eight people in line at the Fifth Ave. Apple store. Queens resident Akira Sawada, 32, is first in line--he arrived at 5 a.m. There are more Apple employees inside the Apple store than there are outside.

New York 7:07 a.m. ET: People are in the Apple store. The line of about 10 people was quickly ushered in at 7 a.m. We are now waiting to talk to people who are walking out of the store.

A similar situation was seen in San Francisco, where cold temperatures couldn't be blamed for low turnout. According to CNET, only two people were in line at Apple's Stockton Street flagship store just minutes before opening, with "literally more Apple Store employees, police officers and reporters--each--than people in line to buy iPhones."

We've received sporadic reports of significantly longer lines at some Verizon stores, but still nowhere near what many had expected.

Several references have been found pertaining to "ATVGames" and "ATVThunder" that point to a controller of some sort, leaderboards (think Game Center), a way to schedule games (multiplayer?), and a store front (think App Store, iTunes).

Engadget speculates that the Apple TV could be used as a streaming gaming platform, similar to the OnLive service, where games are streamed rather than stored locally. The Apple TV does have some local storage (8GB) which is also used for the OS and video buffering.

The Apple TV relaunched in September with an all new compact design. The new Apple TV uses the same A4 processor as the iPhone and iPad and also shares the same operating system. Many expect the Apple TV to eventually get Apps like the other iOS devices, and it looks like Apple might have games specifically planned for the device.

The Verizon iPhone finally launches in-stores on Thursday, February 10th at 7 a.m. Since this is essentially the same iPhone that has been on the AT&T network since last year, we don't expect there to be nearly as long a line for the original launch. Still, it seems some people aren't taking any chances.

Marcia Caldwell parked her chair outside the Verizon Wireless store in Winter Garden shortly after 4 p.m. Wednesday -- 15 hours before she can buy Verizon's new iPhone 4.

Caldwell is presently on an iPhone 3GS with AT&T and will be switching to Verizon to get better coverage at her home.

Also, Apple and Verizon seem to be preparing for some lines:

Photo by Snapcracklypop

The buzz started when Daring Fireball's John Gruber mentioned that the new HP tablet may run up against the iPad 3's launch:

If my theory is right, they're not only going to be months behind the iPad 2, but if they slip until late summer, they might bump up against the release of the iPad 3.

Gruber has been known to casually mention insider knowledge which he admits. In this case, however, he follows up to say that this iPad 3 comment was simply a guess, and not based on any actual knowledge. He gives his reasoning for such a quick turnaround between revisions:

Thus, my gut feeling is that Apple will move the iPad to a September release schedule, alongside the iPods. But they wouldn't want to wait over a year and a half from the announcement of the original iPad to announce the second one -- not with these stakes, and not with so many serious competitors trying their best to catch up.

While that may have been the end of it, TechCrunch claims that they have independently heard that Apple will indeed be revising the iPad this fall:

We've now heard that this "fall surprise" is related to this would-be iPad 3. We don't have any more concrete information beyond that. But, as of right now, the plan is apparently to release one iteration of the iPad in the next few weeks. And then blow the doors open with another new version in the fall.

Apple typically refreshes its product lines in predictable patterns. The new iPhone tends to be announced around WWDC of each year, while the iPod line is refreshed around September. This has been the first year of the iPad, so everyone is expecting them to follow a yearly pattern around April. It seems Apple is following that timeline for the first revision, but may end up changing those rules this fall.

Image from Engadget's coverage

Running on a dual-core Snapdragon processor at 1.2 GHz, the TouchPad offers 16 or 32 GB of storage, Wi-Fi connectivity, and support for gyroscope, accelerometer, and compass functions. The TouchPad offers essentially the same 9.7-inch 1024 x 768 display used in the current iPad, as well as a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera and stereo speakers.

HP's TouchStone wireless charging solution has also been augmented to support the new devices, not only offering charging capabilities but also supporting wireless sharing of data between devices. Multitasking is also a key feature of the webOS experience, with applications showing as "cards" that can be easily flicked out of the way to switch to a different application.

Wi-Fi models of the TouchPad will launch this summer, with 3G and 4G models to follow. There is no word yet on pricing.

The company also announced a pair of new webOS smartphones: the Veer, which offers a credit-card sized form factor with a slide-out keyboard, and the Pre 3, the next-generation version of Palm's debut webOS device offering a 1.4 GHz Snapdragon processor.

HP concluded its presentation by noting that the new wave of devices is just the beginning for webOS, which will be coming to other connected devices such as printers and even PCs in the future. The company will announce more details on that effort later this year.

Adobe yesterday announced that Flash Player 10.2 has exited the beta testing stage is now available for general consumption for Mac, Windows, and Linux. As previously noted, Flash Player 10.2 includes Adobe's new "Stage Video" technology to leverage hardware acceleration for smoother playback with significantly lower CPU consumption.

Stage Video lets websites take advantage of full hardware acceleration of the entire video pipeline. This builds on the H.264 hardware accelerated decoding in Flash Player 10.1. Stage Video hardware acceleration means that Flash Player can play even higher quality video while using dramatically less processing power, giving users a better experience, greater performance, and longer battery life. In our testing across supported systems, we've found it's up to 34 times more efficient.

Put another way, Flash Player using Stage Video can effortlessly play beautiful 1080p HD video with just 1-15% CPU usage on a common Mac or Windows computer* - working across platforms and browsers, it will enable the best video experience for the most people.

Stage Video compatibility does require that website update the video players used on their pages, so it may take some time for the improvements to become widespread, but major video-focused sites such as YouTube and Vimeo are already well on their way to supporting Stage Video.

Other notable improvements in Flash Player 10.2 include support for multiple-monitor full-screen display to allow for multitasking, improved sub-pixel text rendering, and support for custom native mouse cursors.

Wal-Mart today announced that it wil offer the Verizon iPhone for sale in nearly 600 of its retail store locations, joining Apple, Verizon, and Best Buy as a launch retailer for the device at its debut for general availability.

"We're excited to bring iPhone 4 on the Verizon Wireless network, one the most anticipated mobile phone launches in recent history, to Walmart customers," said Gary Severson, senior vice president, Home Entertainment, Walmart U.S. "As customers continue to embrace smart phone technology, we've added nearly 20 smart phone models to our assortment, including the new Verizon Wireless iPhone 4."

Verizon had noted in its press release announcing record-breaking pre-sales for the iPhone that Wal-Mart would be carrying the device, but it had been unclear how many locations would be carrying it at launch. Still unknown is exactly which Wal-Mart stores will have the Verizon iPhone tomorrow, so customers should call their local stores to determine availability.

Apple and Verizon have already opened their websites to the general public for iPhone orders, with availability set for tomorrow. Both companies are currently showing shipping estimates of February 18th for new orders, although orders may presumably ship sooner than that as availability allows.

The Verizon iPhone will be available in stores on February 10th.

Engadget publishes a memo written by Nokia CEO Stephen Elop and posted to the company's employees about the fragile state of their business. The memo is surprisingly candid about the challenges Nokia faces with increased competition from the Apple iPhone and Google's Android. He compares Nokia's current situation to a man standing on a burning platform where the only choice is to shift from expected behavior and "jump".

Of the iPhone's entry into the market, he wrote:

In 2008, Apple's market share in the $300+ price range was 25 percent; by 2010 it escalated to 61 percent. They are enjoying a tremendous growth trajectory with a 78 percent earnings growth year over year in Q4 2010. Apple demonstrated that if designed well, consumers would buy a high-priced phone with a great experience and developers would build applications. They changed the game, and today, Apple owns the high-end range.

Elop acknowledges that even though the original iPhone launched in 2007, Nokia does not yet have a product that is close to that experience. While they have been working to innovate, they fell behind and missed big trends.

The battle of devices has now become a war of ecosystems, where ecosystems include not only the hardware and software of the device, but developers, applications, ecommerce, advertising, search, social applications, location-based services, unified communications and many other things. Our competitors aren't taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with an entire ecosystem. This means we're going to have to decide how we either build, catalyse or join an ecosystem.

Nokia plans on launching a new strategy on February 11th. Many are speculating that they may join an existing platform such as Windows 7 rather than continuing on their own.

The whole memo is a very interesting read on the disruptive nature of the iPhone on one of the major mobile phone manufacturers.

The new device will be thinner, lighter and will come with a faster processor, more memory and a more powerful graphics processor, said the people familiar with the matter. It will have a front-facing camera for the first time for features like video-conferencing, but the resolution of the new iPad's display will be similar to the first iPad, they said.

The new iPad will be available through both Verizon and AT&T but not Sprint or T-Mobile, according to the newspaper.

With the GSM version of the iPhone having received considerable attention for issues with loss of cellular signal when held in a "death grip" position, observers have been interested to see whether a similar issue affects the Verizon iPhone with its modified antenna design.

As seen in this Verizon iPhone 4 antenna attenuation video, the CDMA iPhone 4 can still lose substantial cellular signal strength when held in the prior "death grip" position, as well as Wi-Fi signal when held in a different position, in each case noticeably slowing or completely stalling the reception of data.

The problem with Wi-Fi reception appears when the device is held snugly in landscape orientation with two hands. Prior to the Verizon iPhone 4's launch, sources told iLounge to be on the lookout for the issue, which was being referred to as the 'death hug."

It's not clear if such a "death hug" is of any practical concern.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs famously referred to the antenna problems with the original iPhone 4 as a "non issue", telling a customer to simply "avoid holding it in that way".

All phones do suffer from some attenuation when gripped tightly in certain ways, a phenomenon caused by the human body's natural ability to absorb signals in the range used for cellular and wireless networks. Critics of the iPhone 4, however, argued that the effect was seen by some simply by bridging the iPhone 4's antenna with your hand. The video makes no effort to see if this antenna bridging remains a factor on the Verizon iPhone 4.

The long lead time was reportedly cited for a replacement on a custom-configured MacBook Pro carrying the top-of-the-line 2.8 GHz Core i7 processor, and models with both traditional hard drives and solid state drives have been said to be subject to the same shipping timeframes.

Considering the long wait times, Apple offered the customer the option of waiting for replacement model to come available, a full refund, or a replacement with a standard configuration that would be more readily available.

Despite some hints that a MacBook Pro refresh may occur in the near future, questions have been raised about whether a design error with the chips expected to be used in the updated models would delay a potential launch. But just yesterday Intel announced that it will begin shipping the dual-core Sandy Bridge chips that would presumably appear in the MacBook Pro on February 20th, meaning that Apple could release updated machines relatively soon after.

With that information floating around, observers have been keeping their eyes on stock levels for the iPod classic, hoping to see some indication of a change in availability. AppleBitch has found just that information, seeing shipping estimates from Apple and other vendors slipping in recent days, primarily for the silver model.

The Apple Store shows that the silver iPod Classic now ships in 1-3 days, down from 24 hours last week. In addition, Best Buy has updated their website to say that the device is backordered for 1-2 weeks (last week it was shipped in 1 day) and Target also has it backordered for 2-4 weeks. Currently the shortage only seems to be affecting the silver colored model, the dark colored version appears relatively unaffected.

Questions remain, of course, about what this information might mean. Apple's product availability does tend to ebb and flow as the company manages its finely-tuned inventory channels, although such delays are sometimes indicative of upcoming changes to Apple's product lines.

And even if the tightening supplies do indicate a forthcoming change, it is unknown whether that change might be refreshed models carrying the new larger-capacity drives or if Apple may simply finally be discontinuing the iPod classic. The iPod classic has not been updated in nearly 18 months, and Apple CEO Jobs notably reported at the company's September 2010 iPod-focused event that Apple was introducing an "all-new" iPod lineup. That statement came even as the iPod classic remained untouched, suggesting that Apple might simply be relegating the iPod classic to the back burner and potentially phasing it out.