iPad Mini coming this year, say reports
A virus can leave thousands without Internet access come Monday, a teenager's iPhone spontaneously combusts, and all signs point to an iPad Mini arriving this year.
- Bridget has spent over 18 years as a consumer tech reporter, hosting daily tech news shows and writing syndicated newspaper columns. She's often a guest on national radio and television stations, including ABC, CBS, CNBC and NBC.
On this Thursday, take a whiff and smell those fresh Apple rumors:
New details on a smaller iPad are pouring in. The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg have sources saying Apple is gearing up to produce an iPad Mini that would arrive sometime this year. We've also heard the same earlier this week from an analyst at NPD DisplaySearch. This would compete with other 7-inch tablets, like the Amazon Kindle Fire (which will likely have a new model out this summer) and the Google Nexus 7 tablet.
But that's not the only hot Apple news today. Just check out the video of an iPhone spontaneously spewing smoke. This isn't the first case of an iPhone combusting. Last year an iPhone 4 began smoking on board a plane, and it was found to be caused by a misplaced screw from a shoddy repair job.
If you've been eyeing the Google Galaxy Nexus Smartphone, you'll have to wait at least a week to buy one. A U.S. District judge has ordered a ban on selling the smartphone, all because of Apple's latest patent squabble with Samsung. This time, it's about a patent that deals with search. So Google must quickly push out a software update in order to sell the flagship phone.
Upgrading to the next version of Windows won't cost you as much as it did in the past. If you have Windows XP, Vista or 7, you'll be able to upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for $40. (But you'll have to do so before the end of January.) Also, this downloadable upgrade will include Media Center. Microsoft said it will be charging extra for Media Center. It's quite baffling that Microsoft proposed to do this. Why would you want to pay extra for a media player, and how many people will be cursing Microsoft when they take their new computers home and realize they don't have a program to play music or video?
If you can't connect to the Internet on Monday, it's because your computer is one of thousands still infected with malware called DNSChanger. This bug, found in 2007, was redirecting computer traffic to rogue sites that illegally drove up ad clicks for money. The FBI broke up the crime ring and cleaned up the servers. But it maintained the once-corrupt machines as a temporary crutch, giving people time to clean up infected computers. As of Monday, time's up. The FBI will no longer support those servers, and infected computers will not be able to pull up websites properly. Some Internet providers have been offering help, and you can check if you're infected and find a fix by going to DCWG.org.
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