San Francisco (CNN) -- Apple's Steve Jobs on Monday announced a new service called "iCloud," which lets Apple product owners store documents and music on the Internet instead of on their own computer hard drives or mobile phones.
iCloud expands on the trend of cloud computing, which refers to the idea that computer users are storing more of their information "in the cloud" of the Internet rather than on their own storage drives.
All of a person's Apple devices -- iPhone, iPads and Mac computers -- sync wirelessly with Apple's iCloud, giving users access to their documents, photos, apps, calendars and e-mails from any location, not just on a specific gadget.
"We think this is going to be pretty big," said Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, who has been on medical leave since January.
But the service does have some limits.
iCloud stores photos for up to 30 days, and mobile devices store the most recent 1,000 photos. Users can store only 5 gigabytes of documents, which is more than some competitors allow. And in order to sync music that wasn't purchased from Apple's iTunes store, users must pay Apple a fee of $25 per year.
Jobs talks new 'iTunes Match' How will iCloud store your music? Apple unveils 'iOS 5' Apple's new Lion operating system
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Apple Inc.
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All iCloud services except that music add-on are free, Jobs said.
"This is the first time we've seen this in the music industry," he said.
Consumers can use the iTunes portion of iCloud now, but only if they have iOS version 4.3. The rest of the features will be available to everyone in the fall.
The service replaces an old Apple product called MobileMe, which cost $99 per year. Daily back-ups on iCloud happen automatically in the background when a device is connected to the Internet over Wi-Fi, the company said.
Big tech players like Amazon and Google, as well as smaller companies like Dropbox, already operate cloud storage services with various features.
Amazon created a stir in March when it announced a cloud music player.
Apple typically uses its Worldwide Developers Conference or WWDC, as the event is called in tech circles, to announce a new version on the popular iPhone.
But not this year.
"If the hardware is the brain ... of our products, the software is their soul. And today, we are going to talk about software," Jobs said before a packed audience, wearing his standard uniform of a black mock turtleneck and jeans.
Analysts expect a new iPhone in September.
In addition to iCloud, the company on Monday announced new versions of its operating systems.
Mac OS X Lion, the company's new operating system for laptop and desktop computers, will be available next month for $30, the company said.
That operating system features new "gestures" that make computers work much more like tablets and touch-screen mobile phones.
"If anyone was doubting that iOS and OS X are converging, the use of the trackpad for gestures should convince you. It's incredibly tablet-like. But I wonder how much getting used to it'll take?" Gizmodo wrote on its live blog of the event, which started at 1 p.m. ET.
A new version of Apple's mobile operating system -- called iOS 5, which is due out in the fall -- introduces a system of alerts for iPhones and iPads. A "Notification Center" organizes alerts by app, and these alerts pop up at the top of the screen where they can be more easily ignored. Currently, these alerts show up in the center of the screen and interrupt users.
The mobile operating system also integrates with Twitter, allowing users to tweet photos from within the Camera and Maps apps.
"We want to make it easier for all of our customers to use Twitter," Apple's Scott Forstall said at the event in San Francisco.
A new built-in app called Reminders lets users create to-do lists, and an update to the iPhone and iPad e-mail system will let people create messages in bold or italics, as well as encrypt the messages they send from mobile devices.
The new mobile operating system will also debut a new app called iMessage. With it, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad users will be able to send text, photo and video messages to each other without having to pay the cell-carrier fees associated with texting.
Research in Motion has a similar feature called BlackBerry Messenger, which is quite popular among owners of those phones. App developers have been selling similar software for iOS and other platforms, and those will likely continue to be popular because they allow, say, an iPhone user to contact an Android phone.
An update to the Camera app lets people take photos by pressing the volume-up button on the side of the iPad or iPhone.
The new Camera app also lets users edit photos on the fly, simulating features already available from many third-party app developers.
iOS updates will be available for the first time "over the air," meaning users won't have to sync their devices with desktop computers to get new software.
Users can also sync phones with iTunes over Wi-Fi.
Comment: This is really great. It's a whole new advance on technology! Storing music on internet from your iPhone/iPod? This is really incredible. And sync phones without connecting them into the computer? That's great to. Apple is the best!
Monday, June 6, 2011
NEWS MONDAY
(CNN) -- Rafael Nadal insists he is more motivated by winning titles than retaining the No. 1 ranking as the tennis season makes its quick switch from clay to grass this week.
The Spaniard has swapped Paris for London after clinching a record-equaling sixth French Open title on Sunday as he begins preparations to defend his Wimbledon crown.
The 24-year-old would have lost his top ranking if Roger Federer had not ended Novak Djokovic's 41-match unbeaten run this season in the semifinals at Roland Garros.
"I think he will have a big chance to be number one at Wimbledon," Nadal told CNN's Kate Giles of his Serbian rival. "I think he deserves to be number one because what he did was fantastic at the beginning of the season.
Rafael Nadal: Anatomy of a champion
"I'm very happy with what I did too. For me the most important thing is not the No. 1, the important thing is I have another title, another Roland Garros.
"And for me the most important thing is to be competitive every time when I go on court. I've been number one two times, I was happy for that but more important for me is the titles than that number one."
Having matched the legendary Bjorn Borg in winning six French Open titles, Nadal is now looking to extend his tally of 10 grand slam crowns with a third triumph at Wimbledon on a surface he has grown to love as his career has developed.
The six seasons of the tennis year
His only warm-up event before Wimbledon starts on June 20 is this week's AEGON Championships at Queen's Club, which also features the man he beat in the Paris semis, Andy Murray.
However, Djokovic has pulled out due to knee problems, while Federer has withdrawn from the German event in Halle to rest his groin injury.
The Swiss star, a record 16-time grand slam champion, had been hoping to win one of his favorite events for the sixth time before trying to match Pete Sampras' mark of seven Wimbledon titles.
"The grass is always a special feeling and it's good fun to play on grass," Nadal said.
"I like the surface, I love to play there. You can do different things -- you can attack, you can go to the net -- so it's fun to try to adapt my game as fast as possible to the grass because I only have two weeks."
Nadal equals Borg with record sixth French Open title
Nadal had a disappointing start to this season when he suffered a hamstring injury during his quarterfinal defeat at the Australian Open, ending his bid to hold all four grand slam titles.
His dominance was further threatened when Djokovic beat him in four successive Masters Series finals, including two on his beloved clay in Madrid and Rome.
"The beginning of the season wasn't easy because I had an injury in Australia and I got sick in Doha, but after that I was healthy and I was able to play very well the rest of the season," Nadal said.
"Today was the seventh straight final of the year after coming back from the injury in Australia, so that's fantastic for me and I'm unbelievably happy with everything. To win another Roland Garros against Roger was really special, very emotional."
COMMENT nadal won the rolan garros tournament in france against roger federer keeping him in the first place leaving diocovich and federer below his prestige level so i think is realy good that nadal stills in first place.
The Spaniard has swapped Paris for London after clinching a record-equaling sixth French Open title on Sunday as he begins preparations to defend his Wimbledon crown.
The 24-year-old would have lost his top ranking if Roger Federer had not ended Novak Djokovic's 41-match unbeaten run this season in the semifinals at Roland Garros.
"I think he will have a big chance to be number one at Wimbledon," Nadal told CNN's Kate Giles of his Serbian rival. "I think he deserves to be number one because what he did was fantastic at the beginning of the season.
Rafael Nadal: Anatomy of a champion
"I'm very happy with what I did too. For me the most important thing is not the No. 1, the important thing is I have another title, another Roland Garros.
"And for me the most important thing is to be competitive every time when I go on court. I've been number one two times, I was happy for that but more important for me is the titles than that number one."
Having matched the legendary Bjorn Borg in winning six French Open titles, Nadal is now looking to extend his tally of 10 grand slam crowns with a third triumph at Wimbledon on a surface he has grown to love as his career has developed.
The six seasons of the tennis year
His only warm-up event before Wimbledon starts on June 20 is this week's AEGON Championships at Queen's Club, which also features the man he beat in the Paris semis, Andy Murray.
However, Djokovic has pulled out due to knee problems, while Federer has withdrawn from the German event in Halle to rest his groin injury.
The Swiss star, a record 16-time grand slam champion, had been hoping to win one of his favorite events for the sixth time before trying to match Pete Sampras' mark of seven Wimbledon titles.
"The grass is always a special feeling and it's good fun to play on grass," Nadal said.
"I like the surface, I love to play there. You can do different things -- you can attack, you can go to the net -- so it's fun to try to adapt my game as fast as possible to the grass because I only have two weeks."
Nadal equals Borg with record sixth French Open title
Nadal had a disappointing start to this season when he suffered a hamstring injury during his quarterfinal defeat at the Australian Open, ending his bid to hold all four grand slam titles.
His dominance was further threatened when Djokovic beat him in four successive Masters Series finals, including two on his beloved clay in Madrid and Rome.
"The beginning of the season wasn't easy because I had an injury in Australia and I got sick in Doha, but after that I was healthy and I was able to play very well the rest of the season," Nadal said.
"Today was the seventh straight final of the year after coming back from the injury in Australia, so that's fantastic for me and I'm unbelievably happy with everything. To win another Roland Garros against Roger was really special, very emotional."
COMMENT nadal won the rolan garros tournament in france against roger federer keeping him in the first place leaving diocovich and federer below his prestige level so i think is realy good that nadal stills in first place.
NEWS:
CNN) -- Rafael Nadal beat Roger Federer in four titanic sets to secure his sixth French Open title at Roland Garros on Sunday, equalling the record of Bjorn Borg in the process.
Top seed Nadal, who was taken to five sets by John Isner in his opening match, found his form the longer the tournament went on, and played majestically to overcome his old adversary and third seed 7-5 7-6 5-7 6-1.
The Spaniard has still only ever lost once in Paris, to Robin Soderling in 2009, the year that Federer went on to win his only French Open title.
Can Federer stop Nadal equaling Borg's record?
Swiss maestro Federer came into the final on the back of a superb last four success over Novak Djokovic, consigning to Serb to his first defeat in 2011.
One of my biggest dreams has come true. I'm very moved right now
--Rafael Nadal
--Rafael Nadal
However, he was always playing catch up against clay king Nadal, who only faltered in the third set, when losing three games in a row when poised to seal a straight sets victory at 5-4.
The defeat for Federer, means the 29-year-old has lost every one of the four Roland Garros finals against Nadal.
The 25-year-old Nadal has now won 10 grand slam titles in his career, level with American Bill Tilden, and retains his place as number one in the world rankings -- a position that was under threat by Djokovic going into the second grand slam of the season.
Speaking after his victory, an emotional Nadal said: "This tournament is really something very special and exceptional for me.
"One of my biggest dreams has come true. I'm very moved right now. Thanks to all the fans who make this tournament the best in the world and thanks to my family who travel with me around the world and make it all possible."
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Federer was generous in defeat, adding: "It was an exceptional performance by Rafa. He's beaten me again. I'm sad but I am happy to play him.
"He is the best player on clay. I am proud of the way I have played over the last two weeks but I couldn't do enough against him. It was important to get into another grand slam final."
The final was held up for 10 minutes because of a slight rain delay, the only rain there has been in the whole of the tournament, and Federer told the official ATP Tour website: "When I went into the rain delay, I was down basically two sets.
"I almost saved myself, but I'm very competitive, and I thought he was getting tired throughout the third set and also in the fourth.
"It was unfortunate I couldn't take my chances early on in the fourth. Rafa played well and deserved the win."
COMMENT.
THE SPANISH PLAYER OF TENNIS, RAFA NADAL, WONS THE FINAL OF THE TOURNAMENT ROLAND GARROS THAT WAS IN FRAMCE. HE WONS TO ROGER FEDERER THAT IS ANOTHER GOOD PLAYER OF TENNIS.
For a guy who is on medical leave, Steve Jobs is keeping a pretty high profile.
Three months after surprising observers by stepping onstage to introduce the iPad 2, the Apple CEO will headline the keynote at the company's annual developers' conference Monday.
Jobs will join a team of executives in unveiling Apple's next generation of software, including iCloud, Apple's upcoming cloud services offering, the company said.
Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003 and had a liver transplant in 2009. In January, he took an indefinite medical leave "so I can focus on my health" -- his second leave from the company in the past two years.
Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook has been running Apple in Jobs' absence. However, Jobs showed up March 2 at the San Francisco launch of the iPad 2, where the stunned audience gave him a standing ovation.
Jobs and others are expected to introduce Lion, the eighth major release of Apple's Mac OSX and iOS 5, the next version of the mobile operating system which powers the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.
iCloud, according to bits of information leaked before the conference, is rumored to be a "digital locker" type service, similar to Amazon's recently released cloud storage service for music. In recent weeks Apple has signed cloud-music licensing agreements with several music labels, according to reports.
Such a service would allow Apple customers to stream music online in addition to downloading songs via iTunes.
Jobs' 1 p.m. ET keynote will kick off the company's annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), which runs through June 10 in San Francisco.
In recent years Apple has unveiled a new iPhone at the WWDC, but such an announcement is not expected next week.
COMMENT: iCloud stores your music, photos, apps, calendars, documents... and wirelessly pushes them to all your devices automatically. Its a easy way to manage your things.
Shaq: 'It is time for me to begin my new life'
(CNN) -- Four-time NBA champion Shaquille O'Neal formally announced his retirement from basketball Friday, thanking fans and teammates for their support and saying he looks forward to earning his Ph.D.
"It is now time for me to begin my new life," O'Neal said at a press conference at his home. Dale Brown, who coached him while at Louisiana State University, sat by O'Neal's side.
The announcement was an upbeat occasion, with the athlete thanking his parents for stressing the importance of education, especially if he were to endure a career-ending injury.
O'Neal is completing his doctorate in human resource development at Barry University in Miami.
O'Neal first said Wednesday afternoon that he was going to hang up his jersey. The 39-year-old posted a link to a video on his Twitter account.
In a brief message he said: "We did it. Nineteen years, baby. I want to thank you very much. That's why I'm telling you first. I'm about to retire. Love you. Talk to you soon."
O'Neal has been dogged by injuries in the latter stages of his career and played only 37 games for the Boston Celtics this season after struggling with an Achilles tendon problem. He told reporters he did not want the Celtics to have to wait to see whether he fully rebounded from surgery.
The superstar returned for two playoff games against the Miami Heat but managed just 12 minutes, and he told an ESPN reporter that he didn't want to let Celtics fans down.
O'Neal won three titles with the Los Angeles Lakers after forming a devastating partnership with Kobe Bryant, and added a fourth in 2006 with the Miami Heat.
With 28,596 points, O'Neal is fifth on the all-time NBA scoring list and is second only to Michael Jordan on the all-time list of NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Awards. "I'm really going to miss the free throws," he quipped Friday.
He began his career in 1992 when the Orlando Magic picked him first in the NBA Draft and quickly won rookie of the year honors.
O'Neal took the NBA scoring title in 1995 as he led the Magic to the NBA finals, but they were beaten by Houston. He won the accolade again in 2000, when the Lakers won the finals.
news
As this week's E3 games conference and debut of Nintendo's Wii successor looms, Nintendo's admitting that Sony's not the only victim of hacktivist ne'er-do-wells—yep, Nintendo was hacked, too.
Nintendo acknowledged a security breach in a statement yesterday, explaining that its U.S. servers came under cyber-fire a few weeks ago, but stressed that no personal user data was in breach. By comparison, Sony's seen troves of sensitive personal data repeatedly stolen (and reportedly distributed) as hackers took turns assaulting the electronics conglomerate's many corporate facets.
The PlayStation Network went down April 20th and didn't fully return to life until last Wednesday, June 1st. And just last Friday, Sony was hacked again—specifically Sony Pictures, the company's TV and film production unit—by a group calling itself "LulzSec," as part of a campaign dubbed "Sownage." (Get it? Sony + Ownage?) LulzSec had previously claimed credit for recent attacks on PBS and FOX.com.
(More on TIME.com: Sony Probing Claims Hackers Stole User Information)
The same group's taking credit for the Nintendo hack, yesterday tweeting "Nintendo, we just got a config file and made it clear that we didn't mean any harm," while adding "Nintendo had already fixed it anyway."
Nintendo's statement jibes with the hack group's claims.
"The server contained no consumer information," said Nintendo in a press statement (via Reuters), adding "The protection of our customer information is our utmost priority."
Unlike prior attacks by hack group "Anonymous," which targeted Sony in retaliation for its lawsuit against PS3 root-key cracker George Hotz, LulzSec claims it's hacking for the greater good.
"We love Nintendo and Sega, if anything we'd hack *for* them," tweeted LulzSec just this morning. "If you're listening Nintendo/Sega, you, you uh... you want Sony hacked more?
Wild guess here: I'm pretty sure Nintendo/Sega don't
I think that is very bad that another big page was hacked, because they should have more security about that kinds of things.. and Sony should have now more security sistem, because he was hacked AGAIN!!!
VOCABULARY 1 THIRD PERIOD
| Australia | abbreviate | acceptably | acquiesce | agitate |
| Czechoslovakia | abscond | accessible | across | adjective |
| Connecticut | absorbent | accidentally | acrylic | adolescent |
| February | absorption | accommodate | actor | advantageous |
| Presbyterian | abstinence | across | adamant | adversary |
| Teutonic | abundance | actually | adequate | afterwards |
| Tuesday | abundant | achieve | adieu | against |
| Wednesday | academy | acknowledgment | adhesive | aggravate |
| abandon | acceptance | acoustic | adjacency | aggressive |
| abysmal | acceptable | aqueous | adjacent | almond |
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