iMessage "Denial of Service" Prank Crashes iOS Messages App

According to the folks over at The Next Web, a recent prank played on a group of iOS developers seems to have revealed a limitation in how Apple handles data sent through its iMessage service, which in some cases can crash the app if the incoming message is too long or contains overly complex characters.

Popular developers such as ih8sn0w and Grant Paul were among those targeted by a specific type of denial of service (DoS) attack that overwhelmed their Messages inboxes with a load of automatically-generated transmissions. The two developers believe the messages that were sent to them via the Messages app on OS X with a simple AppleScript affecting the barrage that prompts a victim to constantly clear notifications and text. According to Paul:
What’s happening is a simple flood: Apple doesn’t seem to limit how fast messages can be sent, so the attacker is able to send thousands of messages very quickly.

The real issue that arises with the attack is with the long and/or complex messages that are received. Depending on what is sent, Messages on iOS can crash because it can’t process and display the massive amount of data correctly. According to the developers, the app will force itself to close and won’t re-open because it can’t properly render the text. As of right now, there isn’t any surefire solution to remedy the crashed Messages app. 

The publication suggests "playing around with sending a regular message, then locking the phone and activating the message notification until you’re able to time it right to delete the message thread that’s causing the problem. One thing to note is that if the attacker gets a hold of a user’s iMessage handle, the only option may be to disable the account temporarily. If a user’s phone number is compromised, iMessage as a whole may have to be turned off.

The identity of the attack behind the attacks remains unknown at the moment but the messages appear to have originated from a Twitter account used to sell UDIDs and provisioning profiles. Disposable email accounts were being used to send the spam, making it difficult to simply block the culprit as they can simply open another and continue to bombard you with messages.

Apple hasn’t responded to the issue just yet but we’re hoping they will soon.

Report: iPhone 5S Coming June 20th

Apple is reportedly in the final stages of making plans to introduce the next-generation iPhone in June.

Reverting back to the days of an early-summer iPhone launch, Apple's 5S model is now poised to be released on June 20, just eight-months after the iPhone 5 was bestowed upon the global marketplace.

Of course, the early launch won't come as a surprise given the huge push that Samsung's new Galaxy S4 is getting today. Understandably,Apple doesn't want to take an extended backseat to Samsung's eagerly anticipated new smartphone.

MacFan, a Japanese Apple fanzine, was first to announce the rumored June date of the next iPhone launch. According to the same report, the iPhone 5S will ship in July. Gene Munster and other leading industry analysts have heard the same chatter out of Asia's supply chain and concur with the rumored June rollout of Apple's refreshed iPhone.

Today's report did not provide any clues as to new hardware attributes or the role iOS 7 could play in the iPhone 5S introduction.

The Next Jailbreak May Come From iOS Hacker p0sixninja

iOS hacker Joshua Hill, better known as p0sixninja and for his efforts in previous jailbreak tools made by the Chronic Dev Team, has announced early Friday morning that the next jailbreak for iOS may be created by him in its entirety.

According to the hacker, he has been busy collecting several exploits over the course of the last few months that could potentially be used for a jailbreak. Hill isn’t specific when he mentions them, but since he says the “next” jailbreak could be created entirely by him, we assume that his exploits are not used in evasi0n and therefore haven’t yet been patched in iOS 6.1.3 like the evasi0n jailbreak has been.

Hill goes on to explain that the evad3rs hacker team isn’t going away. Hill simply appears to be confident enough in his own exploits and expresses that a jailbreak may be able to be produced with them some time in the future. It’s not known if Hill plans to use them for another future iOS 6 release, or if he is going to attempt to wait for iOS 7 to see if they will be of any help.

Whether he chooses to save them for iOS 7 or not, it's still good news to hear that more exploits are being found. We know for a fact that the evad3rs also have a stockpile of exploits and it should be interesting to see if any of them can be used for iOS 7, which we all hope will be followed by a speedy jailbreak release.

Facebook Confirms Major Android Announcement Next Thursday

Will Facebook introduce the long-awaited and widely-rumored "Facebook phone" next Thursday? That's the big scuttlebutt tonight as Facebook has begun sending out media invites to a major press event scheduled for Thursday, April 4th in Menlo Park, California.

Facebook isn't dishing on specifics just yet, but a major Android announcement is indeed on the way.

“Come see our new home on Android,” the invite reads, suggesting either a new Facebook app for Android... or something else.

"Some sources have come forward to say a Facebook Phone is on the horizon," says Brittany Hillen of Slashgear. "The invite is a simple tease – vague title, location, date and time – giving us just enough information to spend the next week guessing. Some sources have surfaced, however, saying that we should expect an operating system."

Plenty of knowledgeable sources believe that Facebook will introduce a modified Android operating system with an HTC handset.

There's a good chance that these and other rumors will be rampant until next week at this time. The only thing we know for sure is that Facebook has something big brewing.

the host -Amazing and underrated,

                                                        
director -andreq niccol
cast - saoirse ronan , max irons
genre -action , adventure , romance , sci-fi , thriller
release date -march 29 , 2013
plot summary-When an unseen enemy threatens mankind by taking over their bodies and erasing their memories, Melanie will risk everything to protect the people she cares most about, proving that love can conquer all in a dangerous new world.

my review -The Host is an amazing movie, full of beautiful cinematography and an internal struggle that is very different to all the other typical paranormal romances that are coming out now. This has a twist to it, and is slightly humorous in a nice way so it isn't all serious. I am not surprised that critics are reviewing it so low, as they usually do with teen romances and Stephenie Meyer. Put those two together and I'm surprised it didn't get a lower review. It makes me resent critics, which is why I prefer audience reviews from the audience it was INTENDED for. I never listened to critics, so coming from someone who has seen the movie twice now, go see it twice if you need, because for some people I know, they needed to see it twice to love it, and for others, it was no problem to wrap their heads around and accept this strange internal struggle. It is worth it, and shows a very interesting movie with a beautiful, non sappy finish. Don't listen to critics! It's a great movie. Brilliant.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation -A typical blockbuster

director-jon m chu
cast - bruce wills , dwayne johnson , channing tatum
genre -action , adventure , sci-fi , thriller
release date - march 28 , 2013
plot summary -The G.I. Joes are not only fighting their mortal enemy Cobra; they are forced to contend with threats from within the government that jeopardize their very existence.

my review-
This film is about the GI Joe's getting ambushed and framed. They fight to get their innocence back and save the world in the process.

"G.I. Joe: Retaliation" has a lot of jaw dropping visual effects. I was truly impressed by the acrobatic action sequence in the snowy mountains, and the destruction of a major city was spine chillingly real. However, the abundance of adrenaline pumping action only serves to disguise the paper thin plot. The plot is contrived and not so believable, and there are many scenes which is bad that it is comedic. A good example is the world leader summit scene where the president says "you, you, you, you, you".

"G.I. Joe: Retaliation" is a typical blockbuster, with loads of explosions, destruction of properties and mindless murders. It is not memorable or mind blowing, but it will still do well in the box office.

A New App Switcher Concept From the Designer of Auxo is Born - it Looks Great!

The designer of Auxo (Sentry_NC) is at it again with yet another App Switcher concept. This new concept calls for the user to drag up from the bottom of the display, similarly to how users do already with Zephyr, to reveal a new card switcher-like interface that allows the user to switch between applications by simply dragging their finger sideways on the application icons at the bottom of the display.

Auto App Updater' Updates Your App Store Apps in the Background Automatically

Many of us have a lot of apps on our iOS devices, and sometimes we are just too busy to keep track of App Store application updates, let alone even worry about installing the updates.

If you’re one of those people that ends up having tons of App Store application updates at a time, chances are that you might need an assistant for updating your applications for you. This is where a new jailbreak tweak called Auto App Updater by iOS developer noppers comes in.

Auto App Updater will make sure that all and any App Store application updates get installed for you automatically in the background. The tweak comes with a good number of options to configure so you can set it to your liking:
Not only can you enable and disable the tweak on demand, but you can set it to look for App Store application updates in timed increments, such as ever 12 hours, to save your battery life. If you have a limited data plan, you can even set the tweak to only auto-update applications over a Wi-Fi network so that you don’t burn through your data plan without knowing it.

In case you’re worried about installing updates for a certain application because future updates have been known to break currently working features, the tweak comes with the ability to disable automatic updates for specific applications, so if you have a previous version of the Facebook application that you think works better than the latest version of the Facebook application, you can disable automatic updates for the Facebook application and updates for Facebook won’t be automatically installed. Other applications are included.

Another great feature of the tweak is that if an App Store application update fails to download, the tweak will automatically attempt to re-download it again to ensure a seamless transition to the latest version of your applications.

Auto App Updater keeps a logged history of the applications that you update in the background, including all of the application update release notes that you missed so you can still see what was new in the applications that you didn’t get to see before installing. The tweak also keeps a history of the last check for updates, and lets you know when the next scheduled check is. All history can be easily cleared on demand.

Auto App Updater is available right now in the ModMyi repository – if you want smoother updates that require no effort at all on your part, be sure to grab this great new tweak!

'LiveWire' is a Cool Unlocking Animation Tweak for iOS

Those looking to spice up their iOS lock screen unlocking experience should head over to Cydia right now and find a new free jailbreak tweak called LiveWire by iOS development team Hashbang Productions.

When unlocking your iOS device with LiveWire installed, your device will unlock with a new animation style that is similar to the effect of drawing curtains open. The animation functions for you whether you have a lock screen passcode or not.

The animation is noticeably better when you don’t have a passcode enabled. We noticed that the view behind the animation is nothing but a black screen when you have a passcode enabled, while when there is no passcode enabled, your animation shows whatever you’re about to unlock to. 

Down to the core, LiveWire is a simple jailbreak tweak for adjusting your lock screen unlock animation – it doesn't come with any options to configure

Apple Acquires Indoor GPS Company "WifiSLAM" for $20M

Apple recently closed a deal that was worth roughly $20 million to acquire WifiSLAM, a firm focused on building technology that affords users positioning data while indoors. The Wall Street Journal was able to confirm the acquisition with an Apple spokesman, though the company didn’t give details of the deal or what it plans to do with WifiSLAM’s “indoor GPS” technology.

According to the spokesman who declined to comment further, "[Apple] buys smaller technology companies from time to time.” In the report, the publication cited people who claimed to be familiar with the acquisition as saying Apple paid some $20 million in the recently closed deal.

Those of you who are unfamiliar with it, WifiSLAM is a developer of indoor positioning technologies, which extends location data to the inside of buildings and other structures using Wi-Fi signals. The data can be used by third-party apps to accurately grant handset users positioning data where GPS signals tend to be absent. The startup is roughly two years and old and has already raised funding from angel investors, though the exact amount is unknown. WifiSLAM also has a number of ties to Google, including the company’s co-founder, Joseph Huang, who was previously a software engineering intern at the search giant. Currently Google employee Don Dodge is also listed as one of the angel investors.

The Cupertino California company could possibly implement the positioning assets into its iOS Maps app as an answer to Google’s Indoor Maps initiative, which leverages crowdsourcing to deliver indoor location information for a number of locations worldwide. While Apple’s first-partymapping service has seen improvements since stumbling out of the gates in September 2012, many users still prefer to use the Google Maps iOS app, which offers features like Street View and a more robust set of satellite imagery.

We’ll just have to wait and be patient to see how Apple ends up utilizing the assets of their new acquisition.

Admission -I admit I liked Admission.

                                           
director- paul weitz
cast -tina frey , paul judd
genre - comedy
plot summary -A Princeton admissions officer who is up for a major promotion takes a professional risk after she meets a college-bound alternative school kid who just might be the son she gave up years ago in a secret adoption.
release date - march 22 , 2013
my rating -7.5/10

my review-
The amusing Admission is the first successful comedy of the year and a reasonable look at the admission process for an elite college--Princeton. Tina Fey as Portia and Paul Rudd as John turn in pleasant performances as an admissions executive and a progressive school teacher respectively. Rudd is amiable here and usually successful in his film career, while Fey's efforts up to now have been mediocre (Date Night, Baby Mama).
Admission requires no small amount of sympathy for the messy business of growing up and getting ahead—Weitz navigates the vagaries of family ambition well. If the double-meaning of the title seems too precious to you, don't worry, the rest of the story is almost unambiguous.

Although Admission is mostly about applicants to an upper-tier college, it also poses the unethical means some might employ to gain entrance. Even Portia is not blameless, a touch I found in the film's favor while it deals with the unreal segment of our population smart enough to be considered for admission.

olympus has fallen -average action flick with good amount of enjoyment.

                                        
director- antoine fuqua
cast -morgan freeman , gerard butler , aaron eckhart
genre -action , thriller
plot summary -Disgraced former Presidential guard Mike Banning finds himself trapped inside the White House in the wake of a terrorist attack; using his inside knowledge, Banning works with national security to rescue the President from his kidnappers
my rating -7/10

my review -
As shown in the trailer the attack on white house sequence is worthy to be seen from the initial setup to the entire process really reminds me Die Hard or Con Air. The movie is purely action thriller, no more, no less. Only gripe is the horrible spoken Korean by terrorists and their lines are just god awful beyond laughable level. Otherwise, main casts are solid and good amount of spectacular action scenes keep the pace going till the end. The script is very plain if it wasn't for the decent direction and editing, it barely passes the standard for dialogs. But some action scenes might be too much for certain tastes, its rated R after all. Some CG were pretty blend worse than the video games in today's standards.

the croods - Great family entertainer with awesome 3D effects

                                              
director -kirk de micco , chris sanders
cast - nicolas cage (voice ) , ryan renolds (voice) , emma stone ( voice)
genre -animation , adventure , comedy , family
plot summary -The world's very first prehistoric family goes on a road trip to an uncharted and fantastical world.
release date -march 22 , 2013
my rating - 6.5/10

my review -
This movie is very entertaining for viewers of all age groups. 3D effects are awesome. Kids will love it and so will parents.

Some scenes may remind of the beauty of Pandora in Avatar. Overall a great movie that will make you laugh and make you fall in love with characters.

The animals are out of the world and scenes are very colorful. Its a story of survival in midst of danger. It shows the emotions and challenges that families face today in cave man's life.

The movie shows the life of prehistoric humans. The movie also sheds light on relationships and bonds in family ties.

Starting May 1, Apple Will Stop Approving App Store Apps That Don't Meet New Guidelines

Apple has Thursday issued some new rules Thursday for developers using the App Store to host their creations. These new changes to the app submission process will take effect starting May 1st this year.

According to the new rules, Apps that aren’t iPhone 5-ready (supporting the larger display) and that don’t support the crisp retina display, will not be approved for the App Store. This move is to point developers in the right direction for keeping their applications up to date with all of Apple’s newest devices so that they’re in line with Apple’s iOS Human Interface Guidelines.

In addition, applications will not be approved to be in the App Store if they request access to the iOS device’s UDID. Instead, developers are being asked to "associate users with the Vendor or Advertising identifiers introduced in iOS 6." This move will help in user privacy issues that were brought up in the past.

One thing is for sure: it’s good to see that Apple will only start accepting applications that are ready for the iPhone 5 and iPod touch 5G’s four-inch display, because the App Store has a bunch of applications that don’t support it yet and this can be a frustrating event for users. Just today, about six long months after the iPhone 5 launch, Ookla updated their Speedtest.net application for the iPhone 5 display.

Hopefully Apple will make a move in the future to get developers to update their existing legacy applications too, but one can only dream of such events.

'Doodle Message' Lets You Draw Messages to Send to Your Friends

                                                                                                    
Those familiar with Grafiti know that drawing pictures for your friends can be a lot more entertaining, and easier to get the point across, than trying to spell it out. That’s the idea behind a new free jailbreak tweak called Doodle Message by iOS developer Quisc.

Just like Grafiti, Doodle Message lets you draw pictures to send to your friends via the Messages application. To do so, just tap on the Camera button in the Messages application to reveal a new Doodle option:
After tapping on the Doodle button, you’ll be able to go to town and draw whatever you want. You can use the pen and paper button at the left of the interface to choose your marker color and stroke width, and the two buttons next to that allow you to undo and redo marker strokes. The trash can button will allow you to completely delete all of your drawing.

If you tap on the Photo button next to the trash can, the tweak will give you the option to add a photo to the interface that you can draw on. This is great for annotating photographs, or if you end up taking a picture of someone’s car and want to scratch out their tag number, it’s great for that too!
Roll to annotate, or you can remove a photo from the interface if you added one already and decided you didn’t want to use it.

When you’re done drawing, whether you inserted a photo or not, you can send the drawing to the recipient. It is sent as MMS or as a picture message whether you’re text messaging or you’re using iMessage.

For a free tweak, Doodle Message is pretty impressive. The interface isn’t quite as gorgeous as Grafiti’s, however Grafiti doesn’t come with the ability to insert photographs and draw on them. On the other hand, Grafiti works with many applications, while Doodle Message only works with the Messages and biteSMS applications. That being said, Doodle Message is definitely worth taking a look at if you want this functionality! The tweak has no options to configure, just install and draw.

'LiveWallpaper' is Another Live Wallpaper Option for iOS

                                     
Those staying up to date on their jailbreak tweaks may have noticed a new one called LiveWallpaper in Cydia recently. This tweak is actually a live wallpaper alternative for iOS if you’re into that sort of thing. Just last month, we showed you another live wallpaper solution calledLivePapers.

LiveWallpaper, right off the bat, is a super simple live wallpaper solution. It’s free, and it doesn’t come with nearly the same amount of options as LivePapers did.

The tweak adds an application icon to your home screen so that you can configure the live wallpaper you want to use. The tweak can be used with downloadable live wallpapers (such as Sakura, shown above) that are available in Cydia, or you can set non-live widescreen wallpapers via your Camera Roll as your home screen wallpaper and it will act a lot like Paul Griffin’s popular Parallax jailbreak tweak
Basically, you just launch that application, and pick the wallpaper you want to use. The top selector is meant for live wallpapers, such as the Sakura one pictured, while the bottom selector is meant for picking widescreen wallpapers from your Camera Roll.

Tapping on the Settings button at the top right will bring up the option for you to keep the first page on your home screen blank, which is great for people that use Dashboard X widgets, or iWidgets. Tapping on the more button will lead you to Cydia, performing a Cydia search for more live wallpapers – currently, Sakura is the only live wallpaper in Cydia right now, and is also free.

These wallpapers are not just videos. They are truly live. You can tap on the home screen and the wallpapers will respond to your touch. If you opt for the widescreen wallpaper, which isn't live, then it won't respond to your touch, however the application allows you to edit that widescreen wallpaper locally to your liking before you set it.

Important to note right off the bat, the application appears to only change the wallpaper for the home screen, it doesn’t appear to work for thelock screen wallpaper like LivePapers does. Some people may have an issue with this, but those only looking to customize their home screens won’t be affected by this very much.

If you’re interested in giving this tweak a try, it’s available right now in Cydia’s BigBoss repository for free. It doesn’t appear to have very much impact on battery life, it doesn’t appear to cause much lag, and it’s compatible with both iOS 5 and iOS 6. Apart from the application icon on the home screen, the tweak doesn’t come with any options to configure. 

Apple's iOS Update Blocks evasi0n Jailbreak After It's Been Used 18 Million Times

                
Apple has officially taken down one of the most infamous jailbreaks of all time, evasi0n, on iOS 6.1.3. Released on February 4, the jailbreak lasted about six weeks before Apple released the update yesterday and disabled it. According to Saurik, also known as Jay Freeman, the jailbreak reached 18 million devices on iOS 6- including iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads. 

Freeman reported to Fortune that the total number of jailbreaks from Evasi0n topped previous records and counted 13.8 million iPhones, 3.4 million iPads, and 1.1 million iPod Touches. Compared to previous jailbreaks, Apple took a much longer time patching evasi0n whereas for JailbreakMe 3, Apple only needed nine days to patch over it. 

According to David Wang, one of the four creators of evasi0n, at least one of the bugs is still in Apple’s operating system. He also mentioned toForbes that evad3rs (the hacker team who worked on evasi0n) has backup secret bugs that’s being saved for future jailbreaks. Although it is unknown exactly how many of the bugs will be patched in iOS 6.1.3, they do not plan on creating a new jailbreak until maybe the next major release. 

For users who have already updated to iOS 6.1.3, sorry to say, but you have lost the ability to jailbreak your devices for months or possibly even longer according to Forbes. After 43 days and through two software updates, Apple officially takes out evasi0n. 

Your favorite Apple, iPhone, iPad, iOS, Jailbreak, and Cydia site. Can Amazon Defeat Apple's iPad with $99 Kindle Fire HD?

The rumor mill set the tech blogosphere blazing this week with rampant talk that Amazon would soon roll out a $99 Kindle Fire HD, dramatically undercutting the entry price point of Apple's market leading iPad. 

For many prospective tablet buyers, a $99 Kindle Fire HD might be an offer that's too good to refuse. As it turns out, however, the deal itself is what's likely too good to be true.

According to published reports Wednesday, a representative for the online retail giant and maker of the Kindle family of tablets and ereaderscalls the rumors of a $99 deal inaccurate. Although TechCunch reported the inexpensive price tag would soon manifest, a rep for Amazon tells Business Insider that buyers should not hold their breath for this.

"It's not happening--we are already at the lowest price points possible for that hardware," an Amazon spokesperson was quoted. For the time being, however, TechCrunch appears to be standing by its initial report.